


Randoms

by Lint



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lint/pseuds/Lint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odds and ends. Drabbles requested from here and there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some of these aren't titled, or the prompts have been lost, apologies for any confusion.

(Flee)

 

Her hand stays linked with his, despite the speed at which they run. The empty back alleys of a city all but abandoned in the dead of night, shadows calling as beacons of sanctuary. Rather than hide, they flee. To another town, another place. It's a big, broad world out there. Still so much to see.

 

He's determined to she'll get to.

 

“They're not stopping,” Caroline says, the pause in pursuit just long enough to speak.

 

“They won't stop,” Stefan replies, eyes scanning for the next line of safe passage. He's dealt with people like this before. Hunters. As motivated and well organized as an army. The only good vampire is a dead vampire, and all that.

 

They'd been in a bar, having a drink and minding their own business when the sudden pinhole of a bullet appeared in his arm. The pain splintered and burning, tell tale of wooden bullets. They didn't care about the crowd, civilians, only wanted he and Caroline dead. Bullets flying as fast and free as the guns could shoot them.

 

Not knowing how they were discovered is irksome, not that it matters, but a defense can't be mounted with the current lack of knowledge hindering their escape. They can't go back to the apartment, that much is obvious.

 

“Where do we go?” Caroline asks, pulling him from the thought.

 

“Away,” is all he can say, eyes and ears still scanning, met with grateful silence. “We have to leave the city.”

 

Caroline nods in agreement, having come to the conclusion herself. “But I like it here,” comes out anyway.

 

He gives her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Me too.”

 

They wait.

 

“I don't hear anything,” she says. “See.” She sniffs. “Or smell.”

 

“No,” he agrees.

 

There's fear in her eyes, such that he hasn't seen since she was locked in a cage so many years ago.

 

“Hey,” he says, placing a protective hand on her cheek. “What did I promise you?”

 

It takes a second to realize what he means, the corner of her mouth quirking slightly.

 

“That you'd never let anything happen to me.”

 

He'd kiss his reassurance if the moment were at all appropriate.

 

They wait another minute.

 

Then run.

 

/\/\/\

 

(Raconteur)

 

He's telling stories again.

 

Balls being thrown by the well to do, and served by the well to don't. Women with perfectly coiffed hair, hoop skirts, and elegant white gloves. Though he doesn't say her name, Katherine counts among these descriptions, his tone hitching just a bit for the fraction of a second.

 

She's paying attention. Really.

 

Though her eyes are half closed, she knows there's a nostalgic look in his. Memories becoming more vivid as the tales are told.

 

His arm is draped easily across her shoulder, as her head rests comfortably on his chest.

 

He talks about two brothers, a war torn country, and a stern but caring father. He talks about love, jealousy, the sting of being played but too blinded by affection to take action. A future he dreamed so longingly of, and the blood stained realization that such a future could stretch on longer than he ever thought possible.

 

It's as if she can see all the things he says. Images dancing on the back of her eyelids, his memories becoming her own.

 

He talks of monsters, of men, blood pouring by the bucket full. He talks about remorse, friendship, pain and suffering. Guilt so strong and so much that he entertained the idea of welcoming the sun without the protection of a ring.

 

He talks about redemption, about sacrifice, and the man he's always wanted to be. He talks about a town he could never truly leave, a girl that was supposed to be everything, and a love that was doomed from the start.

 

He talks about a friend, a confidant, a trust built stronger than he'd ever known. He talks on and on until finally realizing she's slowly fading away.

 

He tells her “good night, Caroline.”

 

She falls asleep with his name on her lips, and his life in her dreams.

 

/\/\/\

 

(Always)

 

“You have to go,” she says, blood trickling from the wound lashed just above her eye and down her cheek.  
  
“We,” he counters, one hand grabbing hers and holding firm. “We have to go.”  
  
Her laugh is brittle, broken.  
  
“He only wants me,” trying to make her tone assuring, thumb rubbing circles on his skin. “He won’t hurt me.” Eyes meet his. “But he will hurt you. He’ll kill you.”  
  
“Let him try,” he insists, scanning the room, picking out all possible exits.  
  
“If you think I’m going to let-”  
  
“How long?” He asks, attention focusing back to her. “Has it been you and me?”  
  
“Stefan…” She trails off, brows furrowing as to why he would ask such a thing.  
  
“How long?”  
  
“Forever.”  
  
“So what makes you think I would just give that up?”  
  
Stepping closer, hand to her face, fingers idly trying to wipe away the blood.  
  
“Yeah, but-”  
  
“Caroline,” he sighs, the impatient tone he always gets when she’s being difficult.  
  
“If it’s my time. If he really is going to-where else would I want to be?”  
  
Idiot, she thinks. Stupid idiot is going to make her cry when they should be running. Leaning forward, her lips press into his, too firm to be affectionate.  
  
But the point is made.

 

/\/\/\

 

(Me and You)

 

Caroline’s head rests against his shoulder, light rain falling just outside the window. His Chicago apartment, sanctuary from the rest of the world, but also a prison of his own guilt with a thousand names written on the walls.  
  
All good things come to and end. This he knows, has lived through the cycle more than once. This time, however, doesn’t have him coming out the other side by himself. Despite all the sides chosen, the people dead and gone, Caroline stays with him. She the only one who was never on the fence, never had to decide, he the one she stood by without a second thought.  
  
Best friends.  
  
Someone said that once.  
  
Not their words, but neither feels the need to correct or contradict. Up until this point he’d never realized just how important such a thing was to him. Lexi hadn’t always been a constant, but there was comfort in simply knowing she was out there somewhere, and that she’d show up at times when he needed her most. Caroline won’t do that, won’t leave him, and he’s grateful.  
  
For the first time in a hundred plus years, he doesn’t have to go through the transition of one life to the next, all alone.

 

/\/\/\

 

(Gone)

 

People always leave.

 

An inevitability, coming from a small town.

 

Those young residents of Mystic Falls, the ones not prematurely killed by supernatural means, smart enough to jump ship the second the tassel is turned on their graduation caps. Otherwise they'll morph into their parents, complacent enough to actually want to stay, or stuck in a life they didn't dream for themselves.

 

Everyone she knows is gone.

 

So few tethers left to keep them here, with all they've seen and done, even for one last summer. She sort of lags, not having a plan of her own. The thought of college seems ridiculous at this point, the idea of eternity stretched out before her, a professor all its own.

 

When Stefan appears at her door, she greets him with the assumption that he's the last float in a parade of goodbyes, except he doesn't say that at all. He hardly says anything. The car red and gleaming just beyond his shoulder, one casual lift of an eyebrow and she realizes he has assumptions all his own.

 

He doesn't have to ask, and she doesn't have to answer, the intent of his visit abundantly clear.

 

He is leaving town, and she is coming with him.

 

/\/\/\

 

(First Day)

 

The clink of a glass makes her eyes snap open, the room slowly coming into focus, a tumbler of sweet smelling crimson waiting for her on the nightstand. Suspicion kicks in immediately, though one hand is slowly reaching upward, the scent too good to ignore.

 

“It's not poisoned,” he says, voice coming from behind. “I promise.”

 

The glass is warm when she clasps it in her hand, heated no doubt, to the equivalent of fresh human consumption. A little detail that brings a smile to her face. It's sweet touching her lips, savory as it slides across her tongue and down her throat.

 

“AB negative,” Stefan informs her, a pleased little smirk on his face. “Very rare.”

 

Makes sense, she muses. The flavor somewhat familiar, tasted only a handful of times if memory serves.

 

“What's the occasion?” She asks after another pull, eyes fluttering with the delicious sensation.

 

Stefan takes a seat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped in his lap, head hanging shyly.

 

“The year,” he starts, making sure to catch her gaze. “Was fourteen seventy-five.”

 

Hardly anyone is capable of surprising her, even him, but there it is. The fact that he knows, that he took the time to find out where and when. The how and the why are irksome, always loathing to think someone could have the upper hand, even for something so petty as a simple little fact.

 

“How did you even-”

 

“You have your ways,” he interrupts leaning closer, pausing just a second to take a whiff of her drink. “I have mine.”

 

A kiss pressed against her neck causes shivers, mild irritation quickly fading away, careful to put the glass down before his mouth finds hers. It's the kind of kiss he used to give, back when she was an angel in his eyes, hands cupping her cheeks as if he's afraid she'll pull away.

 

It must be part of all the ceremony, she thinks, though they've been together again for a good amount of time he hasn't been quite so attentive. Leave it to Stefan Salvatore to want to bestow such gifts on her human birthday.

 

His hands slide down to her hips, pushing her flush against the bed.

 

Not that she minds.

 

/\

 

(Monterey)

 

She finds him covered in blood, grunting like some savage animal, the remains of the meal in pieces around him. For a moment she only stares, conflicting thoughts of her sweet boy long dead in the visage of this unrelenting thing before her, and pride at the pure predator tickling a certain way.

 

He doesn't notice her at first, far too consumed by the act, still catching his breath from the mayhem. When he does, her smile comes easily, the first natural one to grace her lips since she left him dead on a dirt road.

 

“Are you an angel?”

 

It catches her off guard, the statement. He always had such a talent for that. Thinking her a vision, the Katherine he knows supposed to be entombed in a church on the other side of the country.

 

“So sweet,” she says stepping closer. “Even now, you say such sweet things to me.”

 

Her voice pulls him from the haze, clarity coming back into those eyes that once carried such feeling.

 

“Katherine?”

 

Her name a question falling from his mouth, awe and disbelief carried in the tone, shifting quickly away from the body parts and straightening his disheveled clothes.

A hand covers her mouth at his embarrassment, that boy floating around somewhere inside the monster.

 

“Of all the reunions I imagined,” he starts, smoothing out his hair, eyes catching hers with a confidence he once lacked. “Nothing this egregious came to mind.”

 

She steps close, he stays still.

 

“No need to be bashful,” comes the reply, a hand placed upon his cheek.

 

His eyes fall closed at her touch, and the question of whether or not he loves her still, answered in a simple gesture.

 

“I never believed,” he says, covering her hand with his own. “That any of the families could be quite so clever as you.”

 

Again he makes her smile.

 

“You flatter me, Mr. Salvatore.”

 

“Does Damon kno-”

 

“He doesn't,” she interrupts. “And I'd prefer it that way if you don't mind.”

 

Ducking her head, the perfectly practiced shy grin comes into play, before looking back up to him with dark longing eyes.

 

“You can keep a secret, can't you Stefan?”

 

His hand squeezes hers before pulling it away.

 

“What are you up to?” He asks. “Nearly sixty years we thought you gone, and now you just happen to cross my path.”

 

It's the memories, she knows. All the compelled away flaws she never wanted him to see. The twisted, selfish harlot who always did what she pleased. Wickedness creeps into her gaze, lip catching between her teeth.

 

“You're getting a reputation,” she says, easily dodging he inquiry, hands traveling down to clench his bloodstained shirt keeping him firmly in place. “One I just had to see for myself.”

 

He doesn't dispute that, doesn't move.

 

“Besides,” she continues, fingers playing with a loose button. “I've missed you.”

 

He kisses her in a way that beautiful boy from Virginia never would have dared. The passion remains the same, but he's stronger, meaner. Tasting of so many lives ripped screaming from this world, hands bold in their wanderings, a throaty growl emanates from him. God, what it does to her.   
  


She may love this new Stefan most of all.

 

/\/\/\

 

(Conversation)

 

“You loved me once.”

 

It's not the first time she's said it. As if his denial of the truth is a crime against her. Despite the fact that she indulged in dual affection between Damon and he, the insistence that it was always him her heart belonged to, is something she never strays from.

 

“Yes,” he concedes. “I loved you once.”

 

Victory alight in her eyes, that smug sense of self satisfaction twists a grin on her lips.

 

“But it was a lie.”

 

An irritated huff escapes, arms folding across her chest at his continual defense that anything he felt for her was compulsion, it still striking a chord somewhere in the human part of her.

 

“I don't mean that I still think you compelled what I felt for you,” he explains. “But the woman I fell for never existed.”

 

Her head tilts curiously, waiting for him to go on.

 

“That girl,” he goes on. “That angel I saw. Yes, I loved her. I loved her more than I thought any man could ever be capable. That wasn't you.”

 

Eyes darkening slightly, she stays silent.

 

“This,” he says with a wave in her direction. “Is who you are. Selfish, manipulative. You don't care about anything or anyone but yourself. Which is fine, I guess. I'm not going to tell you to stop being who you are because god knows, you wouldn't. But expecting me to love you for it? Well, I'm sorry Katherine. I don't see that happening.”

 

Hands clench at her sides, he braces himself for the stab wound to come. For his throat to crumble beneath her stronger hand. So much like Damon in that respect, always lashing out when confronted with something they'd rather not hear.

 

Instead she just keeps looking at him, pensive.

 

“Can I ask you something? And please, for once, give me a truthful answer.”

 

The biting comeback looks poised to spring forth, but she only nods.

 

“Why is it me? Not Damon who never got over you, or any other man that may have come along.”

 

She laughs, though it's not the catty taunt she would normally give such a question, had it been a self serving stroke of the ego. Stepping closer, her cheek meets his chest without permission but he doesn't push her away.

 

“Five hundred years,” she says softly. “You're the only one who counted.”

 

He finds that ridiculously hard to believe considering how long she's lived, and how freely she's loved. All the time, all the men, and all the world within her grasp. He's supposed to believe he's the one to come out on top of all that?

 

“The girl you loved,” she says, fingers idly crawling along his lower back. “Maybe I was her once.”

 

That he'll allow. She was human once, just as he, just as all of them. But like every vampire he's ever met, the person they once were dies away the longer they carry on. He's no different than anyone in that respect.

 

“The boy you loved,” he replies. “Died in the dirt with a bullet in his gut.”

 

Her hands stop.

 

“His last thought was of you. Of course it was. But when he woke up you were gone. You were gone and never coming back. So he tried to stop thinking about you. He tried to forget he ever loved you. Eventually, both wishes came true.”

 

“Stefan-”

 

“I loved you once,” he says again. “Once.”

 

/\

 

(Answers)

 

“Did you ever?” Caroline asks, curious eyes begging the question under fluttering lashes. “With Lexi?”

 

He doesn't shy away like she expects. Doesn't duck his head to hide a smile like he does so often in her presence. One hand reaches for her cheek, thumb stroking idly. Eyes want to fall closed at the contact, but she won't let them.

 

They've been moving in a different direction lately. One neither of them expected to go. But before reaching that destination of no turning back, she has to know if it's a road he's been down already. If they can simply fall back to the place they've always been.

 

“Yes,” he answers honestly. “It-it's how we figured out-”

 

“If you were just going to be friends,” she finishes.

 

He leans closer but the kiss doesn't come, forehead pressing against hers.

 

“Does Elena know?”

 

“No.”

 

“Stefan-”

 

“I got over it,” comes out in a whisper. “I can do that again, if you don't-”

 

“Shut up,” she says simply. “Just, shut up.”

 

Lips against his to keep more words from coming out. The answer to a question both never had the courage to ask aloud.

 

/\

 

(Dynamic Duo)

 

Damon walks through the door without being invited, which isn't an issue vampirically speaking, but it is rude.

 

“Hey blondie,” he says by way of greeting. “I see you're still hanging around.”

 

She shrugs a reply, nothing bothering to respond that her living here, would be indicative of 'hanging around.'

 

“Where's my brother?”

 

“Out.”

 

“Care to elaborate?”

 

“Not really,” she replies with an insincere smile.

 

Brows furrow as he takes a step closer, patience clearly not one with him tonight. “I asked nicely.”

 

She waits a beat, just to see him twitch.

 

“With Katherine,” comes out clipped. Still annoyed that he left with her, more so that she was asked to stay and actually complied with the ridiculous request. Damon looks like he half expected such an answer, which really isn't helping her mood.

 

“Surprised you're not with them,” he says, helping himself to the carafe of whiskey Stefan keeps but hardly ever drinks. “Making sure she keeps her paws off your man and whatnot.”

 

She scowls.

 

“I trust him.”

 

“It's not him you have to worry about,” he taunts before taking a drink.

 

“You're so not helping.”

 

“Never my intention.”

 

For a moment they just look at each other.

 

“How's Elena?”

 

“More than satisfied.”

 

“Ugh,” she moans with a roll of her eyes.

 

“Relax Barbie, it's not like you haven't been on this ride before.”

 

“Do you ever stop being such an ass?”

 

“Special occasions. Christmas, birthdays, yadda yadda yadda.” He gives one smug grin before taking a long pull and finishing off the booze.

 

“What is this about anyway?” She asks. “First she shows all tight pants and low slung top, asking Stefan for help, and now you come after them...”

 

I'm such an idiot, she thinks. Why did I even let him talk me into staying here? Like I'm the plucky sidekick who has to sit this one out. I bet she's batting her beady little eyes at him, hand on his thigh, inching all the way up...

 

Damon bemused glare informs her that the last little bit was uttered aloud when it really wasn't meant to.

 

“Well, I guess I better chase them down before they do anything stupid. Have fun talking to yourself.”

 

He moves across the living room with a casual wave, but stops with a dramatic sigh halfway out the door.

 

“You coming or not?”

 

/\

 

“Caroline,” he says, hand reaching out but she shrugs away. “I'm sorry.”

 

“I bet,” she replies, shifting away from him. “So sorry that you're only apologizing because I found out.”

 

Turning back to look at him, face stoic but the eyes betraying his emotions.

 

“It's not like that,” he insists.

 

“Then please tell me,” she shoots back. “What is it like? Because I wouldn't feel the need to tell you I was spending the day with Damon if that was never the case.”

 

He can't help but look amused at the statement.

 

“You spending the day with Damon?”

 

“So not my point.

 

“I don't want you to-”

 

“To what? Freak out? It's a little late for that Mr. Salvatore.”

 

She stops to take a breath, trying to will all of the nervous energy out of her system. He knows she's angry, just how much conveyed in the flinch when calling him mister, something she only ever does when he's stepped in it good.

 

“I'm not upset that you were with Elena,” she says, voice trying to sound assuring. “She's my friend too, and I swear I'm over the fact that you two used to be in love. But you lied about it, Stefan. You felt that you had to lie. Which just makes me think there were ulterior motives for the visit. Which makes me think I have something to worry about. And you not coming clean means you're treating me like neurotic, girly, little Caroline. Which you promised you would never do.”

 

“I'm-”

 

“Sorry? You said that already.”

 

“What can I do?” He asks. “Tell me what I can do to fix this.”

 

“My heart isn't some leaky faucet you can turn a wrench on!” She shouts, throwing her hands up in the air, calm flying straight out the window.

 

He steps toward her, pausing to test how close she'll let him, and takes another when she doesn't move. Insecurity burns in the back of her throat, and she knows his arms around her will just make it worse, but lets him do it anyway.

 

“It's you,” he says softly into her neck. “It's only you. Please know that.”

 

Eyes flutter closed as her chin sinks onto his shoulder.

 

“Don't lie to me anymore. Ever.”

 

“I won't,” he says. “I-”

 

“No promises,” she interrupts. “You kind of suck at those.”

 

/\/\/\

 

“Okay, that's it. No more.”

 

He barely has time to look up before seeing her storm into his room, whatever it is in her hand is tossed onto his head. Pulling it quickly away, fingers feel the soft cotton before his eyes focus on the blue pinstripes, and the number five stitched on the back. He recognizes what it is, but the context in which she thrusts it upon him is lost in translation.

 

“What is this fo-”

 

“You're kidding right?” She says, hands thrown up in exasperation. “Am I seriously the only one around here to get exited for Halloween?”

 

“I didn't realize-”

 

“Of course you didn't,” she interrupts again. “You've been so busy being Captain Mopenstein of the SS Woeisme the last few weeks, you'd probably say it was just Wednesday if I asked what day it is.”

 

He contemplates a second.

 

“It is Wednesday.”

 

“So not my point,” comes out dismissively as she moves toward him on the bed. “It's Halloween. Which means party.”

 

Reaching for the costume, she pulls it up by the hanger and holds it to his chest, eyeballing his shoulders to the fabric.

 

“I didn't know your size so I guessed. Lucky for you I'm an excellent guesser.”

 

As if finally noticing she's not exactly in street clothes, he eyes her up and down. The vintage white dress, wig perfectly coiffed with gray body paint slathered all over her skin, and dark circles around her eyes.

 

“What are you supposed to be?”

 

“Zombie Marilyn,” she replies with eyebrows arched. “Duh.”

 

Context is suddenly striking.

 

“And I-”

 

“Am going to be my Joe DiMaggio.”

 

He wants to say no, to tell her to let him be. Elena is a vampire, it's the last thing she ever wanted, and it's all his fault. Nothing Caroline can say or do will make him feel better about that. But even he can't deny that her ridiculous request has put the first smile on his face in weeks, and knows he can't really say no because she simply won't let him.

 

So he concedes.

 

He puts on the costume and lets her paint him into a more cartoonish version of the living dead. They walk into the party with her arm curled in his, get complimented left and right on theme and execution, and when they dance she doesn't let him lead. He brings her drinks like a gentlemen, she drags him along to every polite conversation had with people she knows from the endless string of committees she happens to be a member of, and he can't help the smile at every catty judgment she makes on other people's costumes.

 

Only when the last dance of the night is announced, some soft but creepy saxophone melody coming out of the PA, does he realize that he hasn't thought about Elena once.

 

She's surprised when the kiss presses into her cheek, a soft little gasp whispered in his ear. The only way he can think to convey his thanks, knowing it must have been her plan all along.

 

/\/\/\

 

The reflection of a tear stained eye, has her push the untouched cup of coffee across the table. Stefan is in the bathroom, pulling the last bits of wooden shrapnel out of his side, and she wonders if he's really looking forward to cardboard looking piece of cherry pie he'd had her order.

 

It's raining because that's the kind of cliched mood setting completely fitting for surviving the latest psycho supernatural being to want to kill them all. Yes there had been blood, bodies, faces she'd known all her life staring up toward a god she no longer believed existed. Grabbing one of the cheap flimsy napkins from the container that never wants to give them easily, she wipes away the last tear from her eye and promises herself there will be no more.

 

Stefan comes back from the bathroom, still grimacing from the pain, but she knows he's already healing. He stares at the pie just as she'd been staring at the coffee, never intending to partake, but ordering anything just to be able to sit down and catch their breath.

 

“What do we do now?” She asks, not looking at him, gaze focused out the rain streaked window.

 

“I don't know,” is the reply.

 

Watching from the corner of her eye as he stabs at the gooey mess of sugar coated fruit, still no intention of actually eating it, she sighs and turns to look at him.

 

“I'm not going back,” he says, plucking the question of 'do you think we should go back?' straight from her mind.

It's not that surprising, his statement. She'd been standing right next to him watching the remains of the Salvatore house burn to the ground, while Damon and Elena had been on the other side of the flames. It would have been so easy to meet each other off to the side, but it didn't happen. They just looked at each other, some sort of silent goodbye because they all knew this was it. They wouldn't see each other again for a long, long time.

 

She'd gone with him because honestly, where else was she going to go?

 

It's a great big world out there. Endless possibilities and undiscovered country. She'd always known the call of that coupled with the eternity to explore it, would present itself one day. She just never thought it would start out in a dingy diner off the highway only hours away from the only home she ever knew.

 

Stefan throws a ten dollar bill on the table, and wordlessly they get up from the table and head for the door. Back in the car Stefan asks 'south or west.' She's never been very far in either direction, Orlando for her eight birthday when her family was still picture perfect, and nowhere beyond West Virginia where Uncle Karl had a cabin.

 

They head west, because it's the direction they can go furthest without having to stop.

 

Caroline never questions how are why she ended up with him like this.

 

Somehow it seemed inevitable.

 

/\/\/\

 

“It's weird” Stefan says, smoothing out the mattress cover as Caroline waits with the sheets. “That you dated Damon first.”

 

“If you call being a compelled blood bank for blow jobs dating,” she replies, laying down one side of the sheet and motioning with her head for him to grab the other.

 

/\

 

Examining her nails, a brilliant blue just a few days ago, now chipped and faded she sighs with head tilting toward the sky. Legs swing idle over the edge of the dock, waiting for morning to crest over the tree line, she notices and swats away a small patch of dirt collected on her faded jeans.

 

Reaching back, she pulls the tie from her hair, letting it fall past her shoulders sure to tousle free any knots that may have built up from the week or so she'd kept it up.

 

It's a funny lesson to learn, how quickly a small town girl can grow tired of the city, despite spending most of her life dreaming of it. Only a handful of years spent in Stefan's apartment, life busy and bustling around, a pace growing less and less desirable the more time went on.

 

They'd come across the cabin by chance, just another woodland excursion motivated by homesickness, but Stefan knew without having to ask that she'd wanted to stay. A few weeks worth of labor despite the added bonus of undead strength, with Stefan glad to show off his vastly unused nineteenth century carpentry skills, they've finally accomplished enough to sit back a moment.

 

His footsteps are heavy on the old wood, making way toward her, sliding down into a seat at her side. He doesn't say anything, taking in the scenery just as she, knuckles cracking as his hands move to rest atop his knees.

 

Her head falls naturally onto his shoulder, unsure just how they found themselves here, but when his arm moves easily around her, questioning thoughts quell to a smile of content. She wonders if breakfast later will be bagged, or might they take a look around for something fresh.

 

The sun breaks above the trees, a slow reflection cresting across the lake, and her thumb slowly twists the ring on her finger in a subtle assurance that the magic protecting her is still there. She's tired, not having worked so hard toward something since her event planning days, something Stefan is acutely aware of offering a gentle squeeze.

 

Somehow they ended up like this, maturity growing with the time it earns, girly little Caroline has all but faded away not needing reasons and assurances that forever isn't just a fairytale concept.

 

/\/\/\

 

Sometimes, he thinks there aren't enough candles in the world.

 

Standing alone outside the house, Damon's unused lantern in hand, he casts a sidelong glance back to his bedroom window. Elena is still asleep, Damon passed out on the couch as soon as he came home, so no one around to ask questions or pass judgment.

 

They assume he never thinks about them, victims, because he never talks about them. Hand scrawled names on a wall say otherwise, not that he's one to dwell. The flame flickers in his hand, eyes reflecting the monster caged within, as he releases the lantern.

 

Watching it drift upward, he wishes that somehow, the guilt could float away with it.

 

/\/\/\

 

His head tilts curiously at the sight.

 

Not that it's the least bit surprising, finding Damon in the cemetery, bottle of bourbon in hand talking to a ghost he can't see. Ric sits casually next to him, pensive look on his face, powerless to help his grieving friend. It's a side of the vampire Jeremy assumed didn't exist, but knows most guys with such a dickhead demeanor, are usually the best at hiding it.

 

Foot snaps a twig underneath, though he's pretty sure Damon was aware of his presence anyway, acknowledges him off the sound.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

The question comes out slightly slurred, the bottle three quarters of the way gone, and Jeremy knows to tread carefully or end up with his neck broken. Again. Seriously, how many times does a man have to die before you call him a man?

 

“Same this as you,” he replies, eyes catching Ric's. “Probably.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Damon continues, taking another healthy swig.

 

Jeremy starts to open his mouth, to let him know this isn't just a one sided deal, but a slight shake of Ric's head snaps it shut. Only then does the younger man realize that Damon being aware of his friend's presence, just out of reach, would only make things worse not better.

 

Instead he reaches for the bottle offered, takes a drink, and sits down without a word.

 

/\

 

The first time isn't what she expects.

 

Not that she expected anything. But maybe that's the rub.

The thought has entered her mind on occasion, but the act itself never warranting actual consideration. Not until it's happening, his lips on hers, her hands clawing at his back, half clothed and kind of rutting. Neither daring to even look at each other, fearing where this newly opened door might lead. It's not what she imagined.

Not until it's over.

Eyes meeting tentatively, she kisses him before he can say anything. Before he can fumble for an explanation. Before he can ruin it. Never intentional, but they've been best friends forever in every sense of the word. She knows him too well. Change never comes easy. Not to Stefan Salvatore.

He surprises her when they break apart, a slow cautious smile pulling at his mouth, one she easily mirrors. Brushing the hair from her forehead, he moves to press another kiss against the skin and instantly she relaxes underneath him.

"Caroline," comes out like a prayer.

Though she's never told him, she loves the way he says her name.

Seconds pass but they don't say anything, don't even move, or begin to think what all this means.

Lucky enough, they have all the time in the world to figure it out.

/\/\/\

“How could you tell him?” Elena says, grabbing Caroline's arm, voice dripping with righteous indignation as she twists her around.

Caroline looks down at the hand clasped a bit too tight. “How could I not?” she replies, pulling away.

“I trusted you.”

The blonde's hands clench, something Elena's eyes are quick to take note of, before attempting to match a glare focused her way.

“Good to know my trust is only validated in the betrayal of someone's else's.”

Elena opens her mouth, quickly snapping it shut when no reply comes forward.

“Look,” she starts, voice attempting to remain calm despite the tension hanging thick in the air. “I know you don't like Damon-”

Broken laughter cuts the sentence in half, Caroline looking away as she shakes her head.

“Don't like him,” she says quietly. “Like he's some jerk who said I look fat in a dress once.”

“Caroline-”

“Did you just magically forget what he did to me?” Caroline shoots back. “Because I didn't. I can't.”

Elena suddenly finds her feet the most interesting thing in the room.

“You're in love,” she goes on. “Great. But you can't honestly expect me to be happy for you. Not with him. Not with what it's doing to Stefan.”

“When did you become such good friends?” Elena ask, managing to stifle the smallest hint of envy from her tone.

“Probably around the same time you were falling for his brother.”

“Can we stop?” Elena asks, holding up a hand. “The cattiness isn't getting us anywhere.”

Caroline sighs. “Sorry. Reflex.”

A beat.

“I love you, Elena. You know I do. You're one of my best friends, and you'll always be. But I won't lie to him,” Caroline says. “So please, don't ask me to, okay?”

Elena nods.

“You really care about him, don't you?”

“He saved my life,” Caroline says with a shrug. “He saves my life. I figure the least I can do is be honest with him. Trust him in a way he's willing to trust me.”

Elena's head tilts curiously, seeing the way her friend's body language shifts ever so subtlely, how her eyes take on a different light.

“Do you love him?”

“What?”

“Do you love Stefan?”

“Are you crazy?” Caroline shouts, throwing her hands up. “Elena-what does that have to do with anything?”

“That's not a no.”

“I'm with Tyler!”

“Still not a no.”

Caroline laughs, neither in jest nor in ease, shaking her head and looking incredulous.

“What do you want from me here?”

Elena's arms fold across her chest.

“How about you be honest with me?”

/\

Stefan/Rebekah

Sometimes, her gaze will fall upon him, as if she expects their eyes to meet only to turn shyly away. It doesn't happen, of course. His attention focused on the task at hand, revenge, both petty and spiteful. His motive is nothing special, the love of this one girl now twisting him so bitter, she's honestly surprised at the depths of which he's willing to deceive.

Part of her wants to place a hand upon his cheek, as she had so often, to try and remember that boy she once loved so easily. He's gone of course, taken away on her brother's whim, and kept that way of his own free will.

Though trust is not something she'll let happen without him earning it, he'd been the only one in nearly nine hundred years, for which she was completely willing to part with Nik.

That still counts for something.

  
  


(Cliché)

There's a moment, when the bottle comes off her lips moist with whiskey, tongue flicking out to savor it, that Stefan thinks: this girl.

  
  


Hissing at the sweet burn, his head falls back against the tombstone, taking in the night sky.

  
  


“This feels like a cliché,” she says suddenly, reaching out to take the bourbon back.

  
  


“Which part?” He asks. “The undead hanging out in a cemetery or the underage kids getting drunk in one?”

  
  


“Probably C,” she replies, taking a fresh swig. “You know, two friends caught in a loop of will they/won't they, drinking to avoid talking about such things.”

  
  


He can feel her eyes on him, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment, detraction, something.

  
  


Her hand brushes his, giving back the bottle, and he can't help but looks at her lips.

  
  


“Or D,” she sighs, giving him a playful nudge. “All of the above.”

  
  


(Grateful)

  
  


“Admit it,” she says, fingers tracing the underline of his jaw. “You just couldn't let her kill me.”

  
  


Stefan gives nothing, words or movement, against her advances.

  
  


“As if she ever had a chance,” she goes on, cheek against his, lips into his hear. Arms wrap around him, as her eyes fall closed.

  
  


Still nothing.

  
  


“You don't even know why you care. Only that you do.”

  
  


Hands to her elbows, she thinks he's going push her away, but only holds her there.

  
  


“What are you doing?” he asks, voice low and husky.

  
  


“Being grateful,” comes the reply. “Won't you let me be grateful?”

  
  


Lips against his neck with no kiss pressed. It's been ages since he's let her this close without the point of a stake threatening to pierce her heart. She wants to enjoy it as best she can.

  
  


“I don't think this is a good idea.”

  
  


She rolls her eyes. Of course he doesn't. Still wallowing in self imposed angst over his brother and precious little Elena. Maybe it's the humanity still clawing away at her insides, this tiny bit of empathy, caused at Elijah's dismissal of their budding romance for a lost cause.

  
  


Pulling back to catch his eye, hoping to seem some semblance of that boy she knew, the one who could look at her as if she was the only woman in the world. He's dead of course. Died in the dirt with a bullet in his gut, all for the sake of saving her.

  
  


Sometimes she wonders, if he hadn't died at his father's hand, if she'd been the one. What that affection have died just the same?

  
  


Legs swing over his, now fully in his lap, she waits for the push that still doesn't come as her arms cross behind his head. While participation isn't exactly spilling from him, the acceptance is a victory all its own. She's never forgotten how much she wanted him. Simply pushed it from her mind when reciporication seemed a futile effort. Then Elijah came along, smooth and collected, when the lonliness was at a particular low. First love and a chance to try and find the girl she once was.

  
  


Stefan's hands move to her hips, thumbs resting against the curve of bone, and she can't stop looking at him. His denial of loving her, so clearly a lie not matter how many times he'd insisted it was all compulsion, comes crumbling down with a such a small amount of contact.

  
  


One hand to his jaw again, ready to keep him there should he shy away, lips upon his in the sweet of kisses.

  
  


He kisses her back, but something is off.

  
  


“No,” she says pulling away. “Not like that.”

  
  


He looks at her confused.

  
  


She leans in again, whispers against mouth.

  
  


“Like you meant it.”

  
  


(Smile)

  
  


“I'll be back later,” Stefan says, grabbing his jacket from the back of the couch.

  
  


“Hold it,” Damon calls after him.

  
  


Stefan complies, spinning around, expectant.

  
  


“What's that on your face?”

  
  


Hands move up immediately, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

  
  


“Is that a smile?”

  
  


“Really?” Stefan replies, head tilted in annoyance. “You stopped me for that?”

  
  


“Forgive the surprise,” Damon tosses back, blue eyes focused and suspicious. “But it's been quite some time since I've seen one from you.”

  
  


“I'm going now.”

  
  


“Yes.” Damon goes on with a manic hand gesture. “Go. Be merry with your merrymaker.”

  
  


Stefan turns, gets only a few steps away.

  
  


“Though I wonder,” Damon calls out. “Just who it could be, putting such a smile on your face. And was that a spring I detected in your step?”

  
  


Stefan sighs, moving to face his brother again, he starts to say... Something. What? Nothing. Any retorts that may have been there stop dead at Damon's teasing glare.

  
  


“It's not me,” he continues. “And it certainly isn't Elena.”

  
  


Stefan glances at the clock, knowing he'll be late if he doesn't leave in the next few minutes, wondering why he hasn't already.

  
  


“Witchy's dead. You and the quarterback aren't exactly bosom buddies. That leaves...”

  
  


He's actually tapping a finger against his chin, with a knowing smirk.

  
  


“Blondie.”

  
  


“Congratulations,” Stefan deadpans. “You cracked the code.”

  
  


“Don't tell me you two are a thing now.”

  
  


“A thing,” he repeats.

  
  


“They call it puppy love, baby bro.” Damon chides. “Not that it's a bad thing, if a little predictable.”

  
  


“Yeah,” Stefan nods, backing away. “On that note, I'm gone.”

  
  


“I didn't hear a no,” Damon hollers.

  
  


Stefan doesn't look back.

/\/\/\

“The scary thing you don't want to admit,” she says, studying her face in the mirror. “Is that you might like me better this way.”

Stefan doesn't reply, eyes catching hers in the reflection, as she applies fresh lipstick and fixes any hairs fallen out of place.

“Debatable,” he says after a beat, shifting to the edge of the bed, casually glancing around the room for his clothes. “You're feeding off innocent people.”

“Oh please,” she sighs, digging through her bag for a brush. “The very nature of innocence is debatable.”

He finds his pants wedged between the bed and nightstand, she watches him slip them on in peripheral vision.

“Took a philosophy class last semester, did we?”

She merely shrugs. He steps closer, placing a hand on her shoulder, and kisses the top of her freshly brushed head.

“You're proving my point,” she teases, her reflection all smiles.

“How so?”

“You never even looked twice at sweet, virtuous little Caroline,” she starts, twisting round to lay a hand on his cheek. “But spill a little blood and you can't keep your hands off me.”

He has no comeback for such a statement, but she can see his mind grasping for one, and she captures his lips before it ever forms.

“It's alright you know,” she says pulling back. “No one here is going to judge you. No guilt. No pressure.”

“Caroline-”

“Admit it,” she insists, nose caressing his.

He won't. This she knows. But the fact that he clearly wants to is victory all the same.

/\/\/\

They left the window open.

A rush of chilled air caresses her skin, eyes snapping open with a start, instinctively reaching for the space where Stefan had nodded off against her. Hand coming up empty, her brow furrows, head turning to where he should be.

“Stefan?” she calls out, fearing no repercussion from the roommate. Elena thankfully taking her sexcapades elsewhere for the night.

Sitting up, she sighs and stretches out, bones popping with resistance to being conscious. Slipping on some flats, she reaches blindly for the sweatshirt she knows to be hanging on the desk chair, and opens the door as quietly as possible. The RA takes her job a little too seriously, and unfortunately for them, has some kind of sonor in her brain leading her to investigate any noise she deems unnecessary. If it weren't for vampire stealth, who knows what they'd do.

It's not surprising Stefan would just up and wander off in the middle of the night, but she worries none the less. He's been different since the water. Since Silas. While always silent and broody, there's a noticeable shift in the way he carries himself now. As if the weight of the world is finally taking its toll.

The library is the first place she looks. Knowing him well enough to figure that's where he'd end up, coupled with the fact that a second story shutter is left swinging in the breeze on a chilly night. She finds him within minutes of searching through the stacks, sitting on the floor, playing with a handful of paper clips.

“I'm not even going to ask,” she says, looking down.

He offers a tired smile but no reply, as she sighs and moves to sit next to him.

“Bad dreams?” She tries again, nudging his shoulder with hers.

“Every time I close my eyes,” he replies, head turning to her.

He's serious, that much is clear, but there's something playful in the way he says it. Some kind of wary acceptance of what was done to him. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out more paper clips, adding to the chain curling between his legs.

“Swiped them off the check out counter,” he says off her look.

“Why?”

He shrugs, no reason coming clear.

“Anything else?”

She laughs when he pulls out a toothbrush, brand new in the package, twirling it around his fingers and letting it drop.

“Be glad I'm not taking a psych class,” she offers flippantly. “You'd be getting analyzed so bad right now.”

“Lucky me.”

She pats his black denim clad knee, nodding in agreement. His shirt is black too. Just like the yoga pants hooded sweatshirt combo she's sporting.

“We're so goth,” she says, pointing a finger between them.

“Bela Lugosi is dead,” he replies, shifting to pull some other mystery item from a back pocket. The flask doesn't seem so odd as office supplies or dental instruments, but her insides scream the second he pops the lip open.

The scent isn't a sharp ninety proof she expected, rather warm, and coppery sweet. He takes a healthy pull, eyes closing in satisfaction, offering it to her as he swallows. She wants to say no, but doesn't know why. Thinking perhaps, that any sign of encouragement to him drinking blood would be just as bad as offering an alcoholic a cocktail.

Her hand closes around it, teeth catching her lip in anticipation, the smell threatening to make her go cross-eyed. It's smooth, hitting her tongue and sending her senses aflutter, reaching over to squeeze his leg.

“B positive?” She asks, brushing the back of her hand across her mouth.

Stefan smiles, taking the flask back, and wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

“I pay attention, you know.”

Her head falls against him.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  
  


(Anniversary)

  
  


There’s a cupcake on the table when she steps into the kitchen, a lone candle stuck in the middle, flame softly flickering. For a moment she stares blankly at it, wondering as to the purpose of the baked goods presence, before realization hits with the taste of blood in her mouth.

  
  


Scowling with the memory of an event she’d rather not be celebrated, she puts out the flame with her thumb and index finger.

  
  


“Not funny,” she says aloud, figuring the culprit hidden in some dark corner, folding her arms to wait.

  
  


“It’s a little funny,” Stefan replies, head poking out from said corner.

  
  


She only glares.

  
  


“All that humanity,” he chides, moving into full view. “No sense of humor.”

  
  


“Some joke,” she shoots back. “When you already feel the need to remind me constantly.”

  
  


He steps closer, hand to her face, and she quickly shifts away.

  
  


“So broody,” he teases. “It’s a wonder you ever put up with me.”

  
  


Katherine eyes him.

  
  


“You have other qualities,” she says evenly. “Though I’m hard pressed to think of any at the moment.”

  
  


“You wound me.”

  
  


“If only I could.”

  
  


He smiles, leaning in to press his lips upon her cheek, as she holds still.

  
  


“Are you really upset?” He asks into her ear.

  
  


His face pinches with the stab, hand shooting to the hilt of the knife stuck in his side.

  
  


“What do you think?” She replies, leaning to kiss his cheek now. “But don’t worry. You’ll make it up to me.”

  
  


/\/\/\

  
  


“I have to go,” she says in a rush, shifting out of his grip and brushing past.

  
  


"Elena's an excuse," he says, to her retreating form."One I think you only use, because it's easier than admitting you're afraid."

  
  


She stops in the door frame, hand reaching out to brace herself against the polished wood.

  
  


"And why would I be afraid of you?"

  
  


"Because you love madly." He answers. "Truly and deeply. You've been hurt because of it. More times than you ever deserved to be."

  
  


She turns her head back, just over the shoulder, a lone eye piercing into him.

  
  


"I know, I'm guilty too. The day we met? I haven't forgotten."

  
  


"You can't just say things like this to me," she says quietly. “You can't just expect me to-”

  
  


“I don't expect anything,” Stefan insists. “I just-I don't want to hold it in anymore. And I don't want you to feel like it's some passing fancy. Like I'm going to run back to Elena the second Damon screws up.”

  
  


“I want to trust that.”

  
  


“You trust me with me with everything else.”

  
  


“You loved her so much.”

  
  


“She's not the one, Caroline. As much I wanted her to be once. It wasn't destiny. It wasn't fate. She fell in love with my brother. She expected me to be happy for her. The wedge between us shouldn't be because of that.”

  
  


Caroline stays there, in the doorway, fingers idly tapping.

  
  


“I thought you had to go,” he says after nearly a minute.

  
  


“Yeah,” she replies, finally turning around to face him. “But someone keeps saying things to make me stay.”

/\

katherine/stefan: i feel as if we were home, some nights. when we count all the ship lights.

He's never been to Portland.

  
  


Something he says, from the passenger seat, her eyes focused on the road ahead. She has, back in the Shanghai days, loose lips sink ships but a drunken sailor fills the ranks. She doesn't share that, of course, his forgiveness only carried so far. The long miles she's traveled on it, continually winding toward the end.

  
  


She drives, he sighs, and she reaches for his hand expecting nothing but her heart nearly stops when he doesn't move. It's always been him, though he's never believed it. Though she's never done anything to prove it, other than words, the yearning in her blood was all the proof she's ever needed.

  
  


Five hundred years running. No rest. No haven to strive for until a boy on the side of the road caught her eye. He is the home she's never had, always counting the days like ship lights leaving harbor, until the one came that she could lay down her burdens. Until she could claim his heart as her own.

  
  


The day has not yet come, as her hand squeezes his, but it will.

  
  


She always gets what she wants.

/\

stefan/caroline: so tell me darling do you wish we'd fall in love? (all the time, all the time.)

  
  


He's good with dates.

  
  


Can recite countless historical moments with striking accuracy, but finds it difficult to pinpoint the one in which his heart began to beat her name. When he began to want to reach out and take her hand. When a kiss before parting ways would be preferred to a simple goodbye.

  
  


Perhaps, in ways, he's always known there could be more. When the blinders of Elena were finally removed, and he could see the sun that shines in Caroline's eyes. When he could hear the song in her laugh. The fire in her touch.

  
  


When the world came crashing down again and again, she being the one he reached for, he being the one she confided in. When they dance so easily, despite his aversion, when her arms are around him and he sees a future that isn't stung with futility.

  
  


In front of the fire, he says her name, befuddled and ridiculous.

  
  


She knows without the words.

  
  


He says them anyway.

  
  


/\

REBEKAH/MATT; high rise, veins of the abenue. bright lights and subtle variations of blue.

It's pretty here.

Wherever it is.

City lights glistening against the black of night.

This high rise hotel, with a view of the moon that makes it look brand new. The three in the morning chill dotting goosebumps on bare skin, a casual glance back at blonde hair fanned across the pillow, colored an unnatural hue from the nights reflection.

There's a half empty bottle of liquor he can't pronounce, swirling around his hand, exhaled breath toward the ceiling before going down the hatch. He should be terrified, he thinks. The monster with a pretty face, fancying a glorified busboy from nowhere Virginia. Showing him the world by day, and her bed any free moment between.

He should be sober, too. So that this once in a lifetime kind of thing holds in memory. Sniffing against the alcohol burn, he sets the bottle down and curls his toes against plush carpet, trying to remember just where they are exactly.

It could be Prague, he thinks. Or Bratislava. Somewhere east of Germany, that much is true. The last place he saw a sign that his translator worked properly on. Her hair is silk between his fingers, spun gold in the sun, and heaven on his skin when she kisses her way down.

Lips against her shoulder, she shifts toward him, a cautious eye betraying the predator beneath.

“Where are we?”

“Does it matter?”

“Doesn't it?”

She reaches for him, one hand caressing his cheek.

“Come to bed.”

“But I-”

“Bed.”

He slides next to her obediently, she curling against him, his arms encompassing her as if she couldn't crush his bones on a whim. Your skin is blue, he doesn't say. Because now his is too.

/\

“That's one vote for south,” Caroline says, fingers twisting the dial on the radio, desperate for a decent station after the death of her iPod and dismissal of everyone else's due to driver privilege.

“Key West,” Stefan clarifies. “Sun, surf. Rum.”

“Hard to picture you fun and fancy free on a beach,” she retorts, darting a look his way before focusing back on the road.

“Rum,” he reiterates.

Tempting, she thinks, tapping idly on the steering wheel. To see him squishing sand between his toes, with a ridiculously oversized drink in hand, Cuban shirt unbuttoned. She dares another quick look from the corner of her eye. Very tempting.

“New York,” Katherine chimes in.

Caroline glances at her in the rear view, stretched out in the back seat, quietly munching on a bag of peanuts with her feet poking beyond the window.

“Culture, theater, and all the pretty tourists you can eat.”

She wants to say no on principle. That Katherine never had an idea not motivated by selfish means. That there's probably some evil scheme of ditching her in a Bronx subway station, while she and Stefan end up at the Ritz, slipping between the sheets serenaded by Sinatra or something.

Her eyes narrow, flicking on the blinker, and taking the junction south.

/\

Stefan/Caroline; you're the only friend I need / sharing beds like little kids / and laughing 'til our ribs get tough / but that will never be enough

It's a stray branch clinking against the window, that alerts her conscious enough to realize it's disturbingly cold for someone who fell asleep snuggled and warm. Her hand tries to bunch a blanket that isn't there, the clenched fist dropping harmlessly onto the mattress. Rolling to her side, she looks over to him, and sees his back draped in covers that are rightfully hers.

It's hardly surprising.

All the empathy Stefan Salvatore is capable of, there had to be a selfish bone in there somewhere.

“Hey,” she whispers harshly to no avail.

“Hey!” she tries again with a bit more force, emphasizing with a poke.

He groans but doesn't move, so she shifts closer and goes for the jugular, fingers teasing his ribs until he snaps awake. Instinct has him attempt to slink away, moving toward the edge of the bed, but she slides atop his side, hands working without mercy.

“Caroline!” He shouts, trying to shake her off. “St-stop!”

“I'm afraid I can't do that,” she says into his ear. “Cover hogs get no parlay.”

His growing laughter fills the darkness, her hands glued to him, he finally shifting to where he can throw an arm around her shoulders. Trying to pull her off is useless, her weight too centered above him, so he cranes his neck just enough.

Their lips meet and the attack stops dead by the sensation, those tickling hands flattening against bare skin, surprise gasped against his mouth. He's going to pull away, this she knows, and fumble for some kind of apology because he is never so forward. Not with her.

Somehow she holds him there, still using her position to the advantage, and kisses back with a vigor fueled by every stray thought she's ever had imaging this.

When they break apart, lips parted and panting, Stefan's expectant eyes look into hers.

“Finally,” she says softly, forehead falling against his.

/\

She's pretending to read a magazine.

Her eyes look up far too often to actually be absorbing pictures or text, catching his every other time, then immediately looking back down. He knows it's because of Elena, because of the all the touching, the longing looks and dances he allowed to happen.

It's curiosity that keeps his silence, wondering just how long it will take her to say what's on her mind. To see if she'll flip to the last page before realizing none of it has been taken in. That's exactly what happens, as she looks down at the back cover, sighing in exasperation that she can no longer procrastinate with her thoughts.

“Be careful,” is what she says, knowing she doesn't have to explain.

“Nothing to be careful about,” he replies.

Her head tilts, mouth pinched and annoyed.

“Let's pretend you're not a complete idiot, for two seconds anyway, when it comes to Elena Gilbert. She was throwing herself at you, all night, and I know you've been trying your best to push all those squishy feeling away but denial isn't going to do us any favors in the end.”

“Us?”

“You. Whatever. You know what I mean.”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

“Until it happens.”

“Where is this coming from?”

She sighs exasperated, tossing the magazine to the floor and leaning forward. An action he finds himself matching.

“You're always looking out for me,” she says easily. “I'm just returning the favor. I love Elena too, but she's bouncing back awfully quickly don't you think? It can't, I mean, it shouldn't be that easy.”

He reaches for her hand, something that surprises them both, looking down awkwardly but he doesn't let go.

“It's not like that,” he starts, something on her face telling him she doesn't believe it, so he presses on. “Not this time.”

“Not for you, anyway.”

His brow furrows.

“Elena has a habit of getting what she wants. She and Katherine are a lot alike that way.”

“Wow,” he replies with a grin. “Don't let her catch you saying that.”

She laughs brokenly.

“Forget this, okay? I'm just being, I don't know, I saw you two and it was weird. It felt weird and it shouldn't have . You and her-”

“Are over,” he says. “We have been for awhile now.”

He looks at their hands again, squeezing reassuringly.

“I'm sorry I didn't dance with you.”

“Yeah,” she says softly. “You should be.”

/\

“Hey Stefan,” Caroline says, walking into his room, fumbling around in her bag and not noticing the fact that he isn't here. “I got the thing you asked for and-”

She stops dead at the sight of Katherine sitting on the edge of the bed, legs crossed with one swinging idly.

“Oh,” the blonde recovers. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting,” Katherine replies, never taking her eyes off the book in hand. “Got that thing he asked for, huh? How clandestine.”

Caroline doesn't bite, withdrawing her hand and leaving the item hidden, focusing in on Katherine's reading material.

“I thought he burned all of those,” she says with a jut of her chin.

“Most of them,” Katherine answers. “Still a few lying around.”

“And you what?” Caroline continues, moving closer ready to snatch it from her hand. “Thought you'd just do a little afternoon reading?”

Katherine flips a page.

“So judgmental,” said in a mocking tone. “Like you've never been curious to all his thoughts. Hopes and dreams.”

“They're private.”

Katherine laughs.

“Left out in the open for anyone to see,” she says, finally looking up to the blonde in front of her. “Are you sure you don't want to know? Lots of juicy stuff in here.”

Caroline bites her lip.

“Danced with Caroline tonight,” Katherine recites. “She looked like Grace Kelly and for some reason I just couldn't tell her so.”

“Shut up,” Caroline retorts. “That's not what it says.”

Katherine dangles the journal with an outstretched arm, Stefan's smooth penmanship dancing in front of her eyes, every word there in print. So he wrote about her, Caroline thinks. Doesn't mean anything. They guy had dozens of journals before he tossed the lot of them in a fire. He clearly wrote about everything.

“I hear best friends when people talk about the two of you,” Katherine says, watching her reaction carefully. “But neither you, nor Stefan, have every actually said that to each other. Why do you think that is?”

“I don't know.”

Katherine smiles in her predator's way.

“Come on, Caroline. We both know I'm the better liar, so don't even bother.”

“I'm not-”

“Funny,” Katherine goes on, eyes scanning the text once more. “He writes your name different than the rest. Like he can't wait to see it on the page.”

She sighs dramatically.

“Here I thought you would be the problem. I bet he doesn't even realize his own subtext.”

Caroline stands frozen, not knowing what to think, wishing that Katherine would stop talking. Lying, manipulative, doppelganger bitch. Getting her insides all twisted up just because she can.

“We shared a look,” Katherine reads aloud. “And for a moment I thought I might actually-”

“Stop!” Caroline interrupts. “Whatever you think you're doing, just stop.”

“You didn't feel it?” Katherine asks. “In that moment? I thought best friends told each other everything.”

“Of course I di-” She catches herself, horrified. “No. I'm not doing this. Not with you. Tell Stefan I-I'll just call him later.”

Caroline spins on her heels, marches straight for the door, casting one glance back at Katherine still reading, a wicked grin on her lips.

/\

There's flour all over her hands. Shirt and pants too. To the point where she's glad her wardrobe has gone more contemporary, and that a few stains here and there aren't the end of the world. Stefan is adding a spoonful of vanilla to the cake batter, smart enough to keep his apron, she feels kind of silly refusing now.

She watches his hands as they stir, the muscle of his arm flexing just so as he cradles the bowl in the crook of his elbow. Lower lip catching in her teeth, she wants to knock it from is grasp, let it spill over the linoleum and take against the counter tops. It doesn't happen, the restraint somehow overtaking desire, watching instead as he carefully pours the batter into each cup.

“I feel like this would have come up,” she says, letting her eyes shine as he look over to her upon completion of the task.

“Well you knew I could cook,” is his easy reply.

“Yeah, but baking?” She goes on with laugh. “Completely different animal.”

“I did go to pastry school,” he says, sliding the first tray into the oven.

“Okay,” is elongated with her surprise. “Now I really feel like that would have come up. When?”

“1973,” He answers with a grin, wiping his hands on a towel. “Got to keep some secrets, don't I?”

“If they're all beneficial to my tastebuds, then by all means.”

She steps closer.

“And this apron? So working for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Definitely.” Her fingers tap against his chest. “How long until they're done?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“Whatever will we do to pass the time?”

Her lips hover below his, teasing momentarily before making that final push, when a sharp pain slashes into her abdomen. She gasps against his mouth, stumbling back, her hand closing around the handle of a knife jutting from her midsection. Look back to with shock and fury, her wide eyes asking the question her lips can't form.

“Elena knows about pastry school,” Stefan says. “So the real question Katherine, is where the hell is she?”

/\

“You won't hurt me,” she says, eyes blazing, chin jutting out with a confidence the monster would love to disprove.

“No?” he replies, caressing her cheek with the back of his hand, sliding slowly down and grasping her neck. “You follow me here, scare off my food, and I'm supposed to what? Be grateful?”

“You're supposed to listen to me,” she says evenly, wrapping her hand around his wrist and pulling herself loose. “Because you promised no matter what, you always would.”

“There's always an exception.”

“Not for me.”

He sneers, but doesn't deny it, backs away to give her the space he was keen on invading a moment ago. Something inside him knows she's right, loathe as he is to admit it. Emotions off, ripper on, Caroline Forbes gets a free pass no matter the circumstance.

“Go home,” he says looking away.

“Not without you.”

“Well that's not going to happen.”

She sighs.

“Then the least you can do, is buy a girl a drink.”

-

It's an old fashioned bar, all velvet curtains and solid oak furniture, where whiskey is served neat and martini's are shaken not stirred. Caroline downs hers in one fell swoop, the stem of the glass pinched neatly between her fingers, and chews the olive while flicking the toothpick at Stefan's chest.

He seems impressed, despite the preexisting knowledge of her fondness for alcohol, raising his hand to the bartender for another. She's more conservative with this one, sipping casually, as he does the same with bourbon.

“Well?” he wonders aloud after a few moments of idle silence. “Aren't you going to start?”

“With?”

“The guilt trip?” he continues, swirling his drink in hand. “The endless conversation that I'm better than this. Killing people is wrong, blah blah blah.”

“Has that ever worked?”

“No.”

“Then why would I start?”

He smiles despite himself, offering his glass for her to clink, which she does followed by another casual sip.

“I've missed you,” he says.

“You better have.”

The moment is shattered when arms slide around his shoulders, a curtain of blonde hair brushing his cheek, followed by a kiss against tickled skin.

“What is she doing here?” asked with a no nonsense accent, Rebekah eyeing Caroline warily.

“Not sure,” Stefan answers, hooking an arm around her waist. “I mean, she had a plan, but I'm guessing that's pretty much up in smoke.”

“Seriously?” Caroline sighs exasperated.

“Problem?” Rebekah inquires with an arched brow.

“No problem,” Caroline replies. “Just realizing why they call this town the big easy.”

Rebekah begins to move, but Stefan holds her back, while Caroline smiles smugly over the rim of her glass.

“Now now,” he says with a strain of effort. “She didn't mean that, did you Caroline?”

Caroline only glares, while Rebekah gives it right back.

“Well” Stefan starts with a grin, hoping to diffuse the situation. “I think it's time for another round.”

“Good idea,” the blondes says in unison, which makes Stefan laugh.

“Barkeep!”

  
  


/\

 

The name on the door reads Forbes and Salvatore, Private Detectives.

  
  


The names may ring a bell, splashed across the headlines a few years back, finding kidnapped Susie Derkins in a shocking two days time. Such results have earned them the respect of local police, a rare distinction among their peers.

  
  


They're one of the more honest tandems of the profession. Never more so than in a city like Chicago. Matters are handled with grim determination and the utmost discretion. To the casual observer they appear almost telepathic, entire conversations held with a mere glance, conclusions drawn upon a simple touch with an accuracy deemed supernatural by some.

  
  


When a person enters the office, they're seated in the middle of two desks that face each other. Forbes does most of the talking, Salvatore quietly surveying potential clients with nothing more than bizarrely acute intuition. Rates are seventy-five dollars and hour, plus expenses. No problem too small, no case too strange.

  
  


 


	2. Chapter 2

“Caroline?” Stefan calls at the foot of the stairs, head tilted up, expecting her to appear momentarily. “Caroline?” He calls again when she doesn't. A hand slips into his pocket to check his phone once more, her text asking him to come over not exactly open for interpretation, so he's a little confused as to why she isn't present.

  
  


Something clinks in the kitchen, head snapping toward the sound, he goes to investigate. It's just as empty as the foyer upon entering, the cause of sound a random soup ladle left on the counter. Picking it up and returning it to the hook from which it fell, the sense that he's being watched is suddenly overwhelming.

  
  


She isn't behind him when he spins around, but the telltale whoosh of a vampire getaway, echoes through the room. He grins despite the mild annoyance growing at the game.

  
  


“Aren't we a little old for this?” He calls out.

  
  


No answer, of course.

  
  


He sighs, running a hand through his hair, before making his way back to the stairs. Taking them two at a time, he's at the top in a flash, pausing momentarily to tilt his head and listen. Only silence greets him before his boots clomp along the hardwood, hand running along the bannister, but he does catch a clue in the air. Cinnamon and vanilla, some new product she'd been using for the last month or so, the fragrance an inadvertent trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow.

  
  


She not in the first room his sticks his head in. Nor the bathroom. The last door on his left is slightly ajar, and he gravitates toward it in a sense of inevitability. The room is empty when he enters, brow furrowing at the sight, no sound of escape but no possibility for her to be anywhere else. The scent is strongest here too so where-

  
  


The thought doesn't have a chance to complete itself, floor suddenly rushing to greet him, her weight on his back and laugh in his ear. A kiss is pressed against his cheek, before he's able to spin and face her, followed by a rapid assault of many more placed across his face.

  
  


She pauses just long enough to smile down at him.

  
  


“Hi,” she says beaming.

  
  


He laughs softly, one hand moving to cup her cheek, before craning up to meet in a proper kiss.

  
  


“Hey.”

/\

And from the corner of my eye I saw you dressed all in white. I saw you pass right by, but maybe I had too much wine. I hope you come back tonight. You never said goodbye.

Endless summer days.

The kind that make him feel just out of step. Always quiet, always thinking, hardly speaking. The sun calls for action, activity, or at the very least a smile. In typical Salvatore fashion, he does neither. Words on the page are his companion, hot coffee, and the old hometown. He's been here before, this shop, but it was something different then.

Dominick's? Fredrick’s?

Something with an ick, that much he remembers.

A gleam catches in the corner of his eye, spun honey reflecting golden yellow sun, and his head turns to fully take it in. For a moment he's struck dumb. All thought and inner turmoil quelled at the beauty unexpected. The girl is a megawatt smile that could rival the brightness of the day, lithe legs running up into a simple white skirt.

Someone calls her name and it sounds like a song. Good times never seemed so good.

She's on her way to something, just idly passing by, say hello then say goodbye.

Gone with a wave, he counts the steps until she's out of sight, knowing he will not move from this spot to chance that she may find her way back.

/\/\/\

“I got your picture,” she says instead of hello.

“I thought you might like it,” he replies instead of hello to you too.

“Never said that.”

“Didn't have to.”

Silence for a moment. She can practically hear the smug grin on his face just as she knows he can envision the repressed smile on hers. Leaning against the counter, her eyes lift to the ceiling, before falling closed and imagining him on the other side of the line. Shoulders hunched with elbows resting on his knees, phone held against his ear with hardly a care.

“Caroline?” He asks more than once. “Are you still there?”

“Here,” she assures. “Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Like you have to ask.”

She can hear that grin again.

“I miss you, too.”

“Then,” she sighs, switching her phone from right to left. “Why aren't you here?”

“I will be,” he promises. “Soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

/\

Tiny curtains part like the sea, as she slips into his bunk without a word, the rumble of the bus the only sound as his hand reaches for her. It's not unexpected, but certainly surprising, that she would make such and obvious move where the rest of the band could see. Not that it would be entirely news to them. Anyone with half a brain and a pair of eyes could see how she lit up the day he came to audition. How she said _him_ so resolutely, everyone knew not to argue.

The lit snob him second guessed joining a group with a VC Andrews book title for a name, and the first thing he'd ever said to her was a polite way of putting it. The first thing she'd ever said to him was that “Caroline and the Flowers in the Attic” was too much of a mouthful, and he'll learn to love it.

He did. Learned to love her too. Watching as she took command of an audience from his perch behind the kit, how her voice could hit the rafters even without the assistance of a microphone. He kept it to himself at first, as tortured souls are wont to do, emotions hidden like so many secrets from an unnatural number of years on this Earth.

She found that out eventually, but had already fallen, knowing what he was only strengthening the connection. They don't advertise. The media, shockingly enough, has no idea. Endless rumors of her and a slew of pop rock superstars, always intrigue, but never proof. Her star shines bright, so bright that no one thinks to look at the drummer, when it comes to her heart.

“Hey,” he says, kissing her forehead before she settles onto his chest.

“We have a problem,” she says.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” she continues, fingers dancing on his hip. “It's getting harder to sleep without you. That might become an issue in the future.”

“I'm not complaining,” he replies, giving a gentle squeeze.

“Stefan Salvatore, you old softie,” she teases with a pinch. He squirms away, and the wrestle playful and awkwardly in the limited space.

“Okay, okay,” he says after a minute. “We're gonna wake up Jeff and Missy.”

“Mmm,” she mumbles into his shirt. “Missy knows.”

“What? Did you tell her?”

“Girls know these things,” she replies.

“What about Jeff?”

“Jeff's too busy worrying about the shine of his guitar to notice the rare occasion I give you the goo goo eyes.”

“Rare meaning every time you look at me?”

“Shut up.”

He smiles and she settles against him once again.

“It's going to come out eventually,” she says softly.

“Let it.”

“But what about-”

“Vampires don't exist,” he assures.

“And if someone digs?”

“They'll find a few photos of someone who looks remarkably like me from the big band days I can easily say is my grandfather.”

“You've seriously been playing that long?”

His fingers play with her hair.

“One of Gene Krupa's finest students.”

“I have no idea who that is.”

“And yet I love you anyway.”

She smiles against him.

“You better.”

/\

It's culture shock, that's for sure. Moving from beach side California to small town Virginia. But that's what happens when your dad comes out of the closet at forty-two, and mom has a mild nervous breakdown and decides the other side of the freaking country is far enough away to deal with it.

This place is weird. Never mind the fact that there are more trees that people, or that there isn't a single chain store anywhere, the hairs on the back of her neck seem to be constantly on edge. Mom shrugs it off as new girl syndrome, but Caroline is far from shy and knows it's something darker.

Stefan gets this look on his face whenever she tries to talk about it. Like he knows something she doesn't. Like he wants to say so but something inside keeps the words from coming out. His family has lived here for a hundred years, a fact she picked up her first day after running into him, quite literally, on the way to home room. If anyone knows anything about this crazy town, it's him.

She scours old newspaper articles, both digital and hard copy, because this sense of dread just won't go away and she's too neurotic to actually be crazy. Stefan volunteers to help, total history nerd, but sometimes he says such dismissive things to her theories she wonders if it's subterfuge he wants rather than assistance.

“Do you really this place that much?” He asks, after her exasperated sigh of what must be the fiftieth animal attack story.

His hand is on her cheek suddenly, and wow, is it warm in here?

“If I told you monsters were real,” he goes on. “Would you believe me?”

His eyes are so focused, so clear, looking into hers. It's not a joke to mess with her, it's that truth she craves, but is it just her imagination or did they just look at her lips?

“What are you doing?” she whispers.

“What I've been wanting to do since you ran into me,” he says, just before the kiss.

Oh, she thinks. Okay then. Handsome boy likes girl isn't the headline she was looking for, but it's certainly well written, and the content kind of makes her stomach flip.

“You're not wrong,” he says softly when they part. “Bad things happen here. All the time. And being human is like wearing a kick me sign on your back.”

Caroline is still looking at his mouth, how his tongue flicks with consonants, how his lips pop and press into thin lines.

“Here's what's going to happen,” she says, reaching for a hand full of his shirt. “First, you're going to kiss me again.”

He starts to lean in.

“And then you're going to tell me everything you know about this podunk little town.”

/\/\/\

Caroline/Stefan/Damon - road trip (forever's a reaaaaally long time)

“What is this song?” Caroline asks, head poking between the seats. “It's awful.”

Her hand moves for the radio dial, quickly smacked away by Damon's, blue eyes chastising her in the rear view.

“No way, Blondie,” he scoffs. “Driver picks the music, back seat deals with it.”

She groans in disagreement, but retreats into her seat, arms crossed as she stares out the window. It feels like the guitar solo has been going on for hours, not liable to stop any time soon, and of course with the last minute run out the door as if your hair is on fire urgency that all their road trips seem to have she forgot her headphones.

Stefan's hand reaches back between the seat and door, giving her ankle a squeeze, and she smiles at the contact. Always the mediator, that Stefan, not even a squabble over musical tastes is acceptable in his presence.

-

They stop for gas somewhere in Tennessee, Damon no doubt compelling the attendant instead of actually paying, Stefan ever dutiful the one with the pump in hand.

“How long until Little Rock?” She asks, gazing down the highway.

“Couple hours more,” he replies, following her line of sight. “Why?”

“Because I'm going to kill him,” she answers even. “Hush, Blondie. No one cares, Blondie. Hands, off Blondie. Ugh! Is he serious with all that?”

“No,” Stefan says. “He just knows buttons, and how to push them.”

“He's your brother,” she goes on. “I get it. But that doesn't make him any less of an ass.”

Stefan laughs.

“Just a few more hours,” he assures.

Caroline turns to him, lets her head fall on his shoulder.

“More like forever.”

/\/\/\

After Damon's gone, he doesn't stick around, slinking off in the middle of the night like a thief. Or so Caroline says in an angry voice mail he checked a few days after she left it. He doesn't have an excuse at the ready, knowing he had to leave to matter what, and that saying goodbye probably would have lead to the opposite. To him staying. To him letting her be there.

Thing is, pain he gets. Loss he understands. Finally escaping a place nearly a year after he should have? Never would have happened had Caroline said a single word to him.

He buys a composition book for ninety-eight cents at a drug store in east nowhere Wyoming, fills up the first twenty pages in minutes, and almost sighs in relief when the words run out. It's been so long since he's thought to write anything down, and is tempted to set a match to it then and there, but he doesn't. Tossing it into the passenger seat, he shifts the car into drive and keeps heading west.

/\

  
  


He makes it to Portland. He drinks. He writes. Feeds and feels guilty, so he writes some more. Two comp books now, staying away from anything fancy and leather bound, anyone with a vague curiosity asking what kind of novel he's planning.

It's nice here, a lot nicer than he thought it would be, and the intention of heading back to Mystic Falls eventually fades with each passing day. In quiet moments he wishes Lexi would just pop up, smack him on the back of the head like she always had before, and make him smile for the first time in weeks.

Setting the pen down and rubbing his eyes tiredly, a small voice inside his mind whispers, if Lexi were here she'd just tease you about how many times Caroline's name pops up in your little journals.

/\

A flash of blonde hair and deadly irritated eyes greet him upon returning to the rented room, and he pauses, wondering if he's really that drunk because it can't possibly be her. Caroline on the bed he hardly uses, waiting expectantly, two of the now three comp books within reach of her left hand.

“Those are private,” he says in lieu of hello.

She just stares at him a moment.

“You never say any of this,” she says, tapping a cardboard cover for emphasis. “You keep it all bottled up. And then you run away.”

He wants to sit next to her, to throw his arm around her shoulder and give a proper hello. He's glad she's here, that much is true, but something shifts inside his heart and stands still.

“I couldn't stay,” is all he says.

“I would have come with you.”

“I know.”

“You write all these things,” she continues, offering up one of the books. “Such heat breaking beautiful things. But you don't act on it. You don't even look at me any different. Or allow yourself to think that I might-”

“Caroline-”

“I do too,” she says quickly. “How can you not get that?”

“Because I don't get happy endings.”

“Stupid,” she sighs, rubbing a hand on her forehead. “You are so unbelievably stupid.”

She pulls a pen from her purse, opens one of the books, and writes “and they lived happily ever after” on the margin of the last page.

Stefan kisses her because that's how these stories end.

/\

The wood crackles and pops, background noise for an otherwise quiet house, his eyes watching the flame flicker away. Pine burning has a distinct scent, one that takes him back, 1864 and father showing him how to properly split wood. Tumbler in hand, he sips idly on the slowly depleting levels of Damon's stash, so long brother and thanks for all the booze.

Self reflection is nothing new, whether it's alcohol or a pen guiding him along, thinking of one blonde's words about another blonde's feelings and the sudden light bulb that felt long over due. Lexi hadn't been subtle, but he'd been blind, and now every time Caroline looks his way he sees it.

Wondering how long it's been there, if that even matters, to act or ask, or let things go on just as they have. Best friends who do anything for each other. Maybe that's an answer on its own. Friends he can do, but love is a failure, the list of names reflected in his mind. Too much or not enough. Doppelganger destiny or simple ignorance keeping him away from that next step.

“Well this looks depressing,” Caroline's voice calls from behind.

His head twists around the oversized chair to see her standing there, arms folded, but a brilliant smile on her face.

“It's summer time, Salvatore,” she says stepping into the room, and moving to take the chair opposite. “No brooding fires and swallowing your sorrows when the weather's good.”

He doesn't have a comeback, just smiles complacent, and she rolls her eyes in response.

Sometimes he feels ridiculous. How he couldn't see it. She's here, with him always, without his ever having to ask. He moves to the wet bar, grabs a fresh glass and pours, and offers it to her with an encouraging tilt of his head.

She accepts, sips with ease, and looks at him expectantly.

He leans down impulsive, clinks their glasses together, and kisses the crown of her head.

Caroline's eyes widen, a faint blush spreading into her cheeks.

“What was that for?” She asks.

“I don't know,” he replies honestly. “Just felt like something I should do.”

/\

She hasn't said anything for nearly forty minutes, which sends flashing lights and alarm bells ringing, because foreboding silence and Caroline Forbes are a combination that instills fear somewhere deep inside.

He tries the radio first, picking any bubble gum pop song that happens to come across, constantly giving her the side eye gauging for a reaction. No dice after the first two, and he can't stand the third one that comes up for more than a verse, twisting the knob and leaving it on golden oldies.

Idle chit chat then, topics ranging from his own college experiences to half a year of culinary school back in the seventies, Bon Jovi tour chasing days of the eighties, and saying hey to Kurt Cobain in a bathroom somewhere in Arizona in the nineties.

Still nothing.

He taps the steering idly, opens his mouth hoping some words will actually come out, when his head turns toward her and she breaks.

“Stop trying to cheer me up!” She shouts, throwing her hands up.

Awkward silence follows for nearly a minute.

“I know that's what you're trying to do,” she says softer. “And I love you for it, but I just, just leave it for now okay?”

He nods, accepting that, but his ears still burn.

“What was that last part?”

She rolls her eyes, but smiles.

“Just let me be sad.”

“Sure,” he complies. “No problem.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

That's an awful lot of sugar, he thinks.

One, two, three, four second pour. Straight into the cup.

Caroline puts the dispenser back into the caddy with a clink, moves onto the cream, and Stefan can't help but count the seconds for that either. Decidedly less than before, but the color and composition of the substance can't be anything close to coffee, and looks at her with a curious lift of his brow.

“What?” she asks nonplussed.

“Nothing,” he replies, twisting his own mug around.

“Seriously, what?” She asks again when his eyes don't budge from her cup.

“Okay,” he says, pausing dramatically with a sip of coffee. “There's something I've been meaning to say...”

“...which is?”

“Coffee is meant to be tasted,” he goes on on, setting the mug down with emphasis. “Not drowned in sugary sweetness.”

Caroline scoffs, lifts the cup to her lips and takes a healthy gulp.

“Well, the next time I keep you up with an all night sex marathon, feel free to tell me how to prepare my coffee.”

/\

They're in Montana, following a river bend, ducking in and out of cloud shadows that pass the sun with an odd regularity. His hand snatches her elbow when an angled rock nearly causes her to topple into the water, and she returns the favor a quarter mile later, grabbing the lapels of his jacket when a soggy patch of ground suddenly gives way.

“Most famous person you ever met?” She asks, continuing a game they'd abandoned somewhere past Chicago.

“Marilyn Monroe,” he replies. “Though Norma wasn't famous yet when I knew her.”

“Cherished childhood possession?”

“Captain Carrot,” she answers. “The best stuffed bunny a girl could ask for.”

A deer taking a drink only fifty feet away grabs their attention.

“Hungry?”

He mulls it over. “No, leave it alone.”

They walk.

“Priciest thing you ever stole?”

“Diamond necklace.”

“Happiest memory?”

“Winning the seventh grade talent show. It was the last time my parents were together, you know, as parents.”

A felled tree gives their travel pause, both taking a seat on the grass and letting their backs rest against it.

“Moment you never thought much of until it came back to bite you?”

“Making out with a feisty girl named Sheila who grew up to be Bonnie's grandmother.”

“What?” she all but shouts, twisting to knock him in the arm. “Are you serious?”

His head knocks back in regret.

“Can we pretend I didn't just say that?”

She shakes her head emphatically.

“Oh no,” she says. “There's a story there, and you're going to tell it. Every sordid detail.”

“Caroline...”

“Nu uh,” she denies with a pinch. “Spill.”

/\

He sets a cup of coffee on the edge of the desk, leaning over her shoulder, eyes skimming the file she's already read through a dozen times over. They're missing something, that much is obvious, but whatever said thing is chooses not to present itself in a straightforward manner.

A frustrated sigh rises from her throat, right hand blindly grabbing for the mug, he pushing it gently into her grasp after two failed attempts. There's pressure on this case, the kind they've never bothered to let affect the work before, but the spotlight suddenly shining both blinds and confuses.

The mayor picked them personally, over the police force, which isn't winning them any friends and what select few they had there offer nothing out of camaraderie or spite. All because last year they cracked a whopper of a case, missing girl with no leads and little to no suspects, those little easily susceptible to compulsion.

Stefan will never regret saving the life of a kidnapped seven year old, neither will Caroline, but the unintended consequence of the startling amount of attention is something they second guess constantly. They operate better in the shadows, creatures of the night and all, and they're successful because they keep to what they know.

“Let's take a step back,” he offers, rubbing her shoulders, slightly shocked at the amount of tension he finds.

“Have to move forward in order to step back,” she replies, flipping a page.

He leans forward, lips against her ear.

“There's nothing here,” he says softly, chin jutting at the text. “Pressure's on, I know. But maybe we're looking at this all wrong.”

Head tilting against his cheek, her eyes close momentarily against the strain, allowing one small moment before pushing on.

“Have you got something?” she asks when the moment passes.

“We assume they don't know what ninety percent of our cases are,” he says, one hand reaching for photos of victims. “That, because of Susie Derkins, they would just give us a more straightforward crime.”

“So you're saying..?”

“We're looking at this as if it's a typical human serial killer,” he goes on, picking one of the more gruesome photos for emphasis. “When we know full well our instincts tell us otherwise.”

Caroline eyes the blood, the gore and pieces, and finally sees what they've been missing.

A predator. A monster.

“Well that's more credit that I would have given Mayor Blackwell,” she says, turning her head to him with a grin. “Knowing Chicago PD is in over their heads.”

“Easy partner,” he laughs. “Now tell me, what do you see?”

Her eyes scan the images with fresh perspective, words of the report suddenly carrying new meaning.

“A wolf,” she says grimly. “That kind that's a person twenty-seven other days a month.”

Stefan nods in agreement.

“That's why your name comes first on the door,” he says with a nudge.

“Forbes and Salvatore just rolls off the tongue,” she dismisses. “Lucky you have me for little things like marketing.”

“Lucky for a lot of reasons,” he replies, placing a kiss on her temple. “Looks like we've got an all nighter ahead of us,” he goes on, standing and moving toward the coffee maker. “I'll make a fresh pot.”

/\

Steroline prompt: You don't know this now but / There's some things that need to be said / It's all that I can hear / It's more than I can bear.

Funny, he thinks. For a vampire he can't remember the last time he's seen so much blood. Staining his shirt, spilling into his hands, bottom lip caught between his teeth as the pain spreads throughout. Low shallow breaths, he has to get out of here, he has too...

Little black spiders crawl into his vision, eyes pinching closed, Caroline... What happened to Caroline? Shifting to his side, a guttural moan escaping through his lips, somehow he pushes up to his knees and nearly collapses again from the effort.

He can't remember what did this. Something mean. Something strong. A new big bad wanting to end them as always. Hands clench into fists, he has to get up, he has to find-

“Stefan!”

Caroline. Shouting his name. He can't tell from where, but her boots clomp along the cold concrete, and suddenly her hands are on his back.

“Oh my god,” she says soft and scarily quiet.

Guess he doesn't need to ask how bad it is, does he?

“I'm okay,” he says and doesn't know why. That's what people say in situations like this, right?

“Don't move,” she says. “Don't, oh my god...”

Deep breath. One, two, three.

“You said that already,” he tries to joke.

“Shut up,” she says weakly. “No talking.”

Eyes close against the pain, sheer will alone keeping him upright, but who knows how long it can last?

Something presses against lips, soft and smooth, slick but warm. Vision focusing to see Caroline's hand clenched into a fist, her wrist offered to him, instinct clutching to it madly. The blood spreads fire in his veins, pain and hunger on the edge of madness, she gasps but doesn't pull away.

Seconds succumb to eons, each taste bringing new life, and somehow he manages to tear himself away before taking too much. Her weight falls against him, weakened but not down, and for a moment they stay in that odd tangle listening to each other breathe.

“Caroline...”

“Don't,” she whispers.

“I need-I need to say, you need to kn-”

“You don't have to say it,” she offers.

“But I want-”

“I already know,” she says. “You're the one who needs to say it because you're the one who never realized. But I'm here, with you, and you're always there with me. So you don't have to say it.”

He can feel himself healing, each broken piece slowly mending back into place, and almost smiles.

/\

"So this is how it is now?" Elena asks. "The two of you? Mr. and Mrs. dynamic duo? I’m just supposed to accept it?"

  
  


"Look," he says. "It has nothing to do with you. This isn’t retaliation. It isn’t revenge. It happened. It’s going to keep happening."

  
  


Elena chews the inside of her cheek.

  
  


"And yes, please accept it. Because we’re happy, and you should be happy for us."

  
  


“I-”

  
  


“This isn't fair,” Stefan says, fighting to keep his voice even. “To even have a reaction, is beyond hypocritical. I'm not going to point fingers, and I'm not going to name names, but I can't understand. She's your friend, and I love her. I thought I was your friend too, and assumed you would want me to be happy.”

  
  


“Of course I do,” she insists.

  
  


“Then what is this? Where is it coming from?”

  
  


Her chin dips.

  
  


“I don't know.”

  
  


“For the first time, in a long time, I feel good. Whole. Caroline has a way of doing that. So stop being mean to her. To us.”

/\

Maybe they should have shirts made.

“Psycho Maniacal Villain is in Love with Me Club”

Caroline knows he doesn't judge her for choices made. The flirtation, the kind of maybe wanting it, the actuality of sex all dirty, naughty, oh my god what did I just do?

Just like she doesn't judge him for bedding her murderer. Seven kinds of herbs and spices crazy, obsessed, let me love you forever even if I've done nothing to earn it. It's weird, isn't it? Their mutually precarious love lingers last situations. Stefan doesn't like to talk about it, nor does he ask a lot of questions.

But Caroline knows, it festers somewhere in there. Maybe it's jealously. Maybe disappointment. Maybe he never wants her to think less of him, as if she ever could, though a part of her does find it irksome because she's not that evolved.

Katherine is, was, something. Creeping under her own skin in a friendship that would never be. All the better for that, mind you, but still a possibility. Just as Klaus is, was, who the hell knows? She doesn't want to think about it much and Stefan doesn't want to talk.

Her hand finds his, and there's something for all this angst, that tiny little smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. It could be so easy, she thinks, keeping herself from reaching up to touch his cheek. Forever isn't scary when you're talking metaphorical, but with them it's literal, and all the connotations such a length of time brings another obstacle in the road.

It's her and he, she and him, no matter what or when.

For now or never, it's perfect.

  
  


/\

“Found you.”

The whole place smells like oil and grease, metal and rubber, pungent to the olfactory sense so that she breathes through her mouth. His legs don't move from under the car, one straight and one bent, but the sound of tools cranking away still at her words. It takes him ten whole seconds to slide out, eyeing her warily as he does, no doubt waiting for the lash of her words perched to come.

He grabs for a rag when it doesn't, wiping the day's grit away, and shifting to his side before pushing up to his feet. He wants to ask how, she knows, but keeps that irritating silence. She has her ways. He above anyone understands that.

“You're exactly one tank of gas away from home,” she says, cutting through the silence. “If that wasn't planned it's a hell of a coincidence.”

Leaning against the car he was working on, giving is a helpless shrug, it takes all she has not to step forward and slap that face. He's not asking why she's here. He doesn't seem surprised to see her at all, as if her presence was somehow inevitable, time and distance not quite far enough.

She stares longer than planned, it finally getting a verbal response.

“What?”

“Just seeing if your pants are on fire,” she offers. “This little life here doesn't look a damn thing like the one you've been telling.”

“Caroline-”

“Do I look like I'm finished?”

He waits.

“Okay I didn't have anything besides that little outburst, but what the hell? Lying? To me? Seriously?”

He bunches the rag still in hand.

“You would have asked me to stay.”

“Of course I would have!” She shouts. “Because this,” she throws her arms around. “Whatever it is...” She drops off. “What is this exactly?”

“Moving on,” he answers. “Living a life that's simple.”

“Stefan-”

“I had to get out of there. And I-I couldn't have done that if you asked me.”

“Hey,” she starts, moving toward him, contact something she doesn't second guess.

“He's gone,” Stefan says softly.

“They're gone,” she corrects. “He didn't go alone.”

She can feel him tense against her, as if the realization that she'd lost Bonnie just as much as he'd lost Damon, only now occurred to him.

“I would have asked you to stay,” she continues. “Because it would have been nice to not deal with that all by myself. It would have been nice, not to be fed lies that you were kinda maybe doing something about it, instead of tinkering around with hunk of junk cars in small town Pennsylvania.”

His arms wrap around her.

“Do you hate me?”

“A little.”

/\

It's the kind of place that doesn't card.

A shady, backwoods dive, that says legal drinking age is just the man trying to keep you down. Caroline would want to leave if it wasn't her idea to go out in the first place, not thinking that an unnamed mountain town Kentucky might not meet her expectations when wanting a cocktail.

Stefan's eyes don't leave her profile, an amused smirk she'd just love to wipe off his face. He leads her to the bar by the crook of her elbow, orders two bourbons neat, and she doesn't say anything about being fully capable of ordering for herself.

It's pretty crowded for being in the middle of nowhere, but maybe that's the sell, limited options. They find a table almost hidden in a corner, and she sips from the tumbler hoping to god it's clean. The whiskey is good, ridiculously so, and it takes a bit of self control not to down it all at once.

Stefan smiles.

“What?”

“Good isn't it?”

She looks down at her glass, two sips and it's almost gone already.

“Have you been here before?”

He takes a drink of his own.

“Once or twice. Damon, well he loved his bourbon, and they make their own.”

She looks back to the glass, gone.

“Well,” she says, offering it to him with an outstretched arm. “I'm dry, how about another?”

He obliges without a word, heading back to the bar with the glass in hand. Minutes pass without his return, and she knows it's full, but it really shouldn't take that long to get another drink. Craning her neck around the hidden corner, she sees Stefan at the bar, being chatted up by a petite brunette. Which, okay, shouldn't seem like much a shock with what a good looking so and so he can be.

But it suddenly feels as if he shouldn't be flirting girls at a bar. He shouldn't be smiling, which he's hardly been doing much of lately, because of random strangers. Not with all she's done to try and help move on from- Without another thought, she moves, ending up at Stefan's side with a beaming plastic smile.

“How long does it take to get a drink around here?” she asks, effectively cutting off the girl's last sentence.

“Excuse me?” She asks, face pinched with annoyance at the blonde's appearance.

“Yes, excuse you,” Caroline replies, hand possessively going for Stefans's shoulder. “Off you go.”

She reaching around him for the delayed refill, taking a gracious sip, and tilting the cup toward the opposite side of the room. The girl goes, but not without scowl of contempt at Stefan, as if this was just some sick joke he and his girl play.

Stefan doesn't call her back, though Caroline can tell he wants to, if only to apologize for her rudeness. He turns to her.

“What was that?”

Caroline takes another drink.

“I was thirsty.”

/\

The car door is unlocked, which is odd, because Caroline distinctly remembers locking it. A quick once over shows that nothing is missing, rather, a familiar addition resting in the passenger seat. Brown leather, one of Stefan's no doubt, held shut with a simple strap.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out who put it there. But it would take one to surmise what possible motivation Katherine has in giving Stefan's words to her. The words teased and tempted to her face just days ago. A hand moves of its own volition, before rational thought comes into play, reaching for the keys instead.

-

Katherine is in the den, pilfering Damon's bourbon, a cold sly smirk on her face at the sight of Caroline storming in.

“Well?” She asks with a wave on the glass in hand. “Good read?”

Caroline tosses the journal on the empty sofa.

“Nice try,” she replies. “But whatever game you're trying to play, leave me out.”

Katherine takes a slow dramatic drink.

“Because you don't know the rules? God, people are so boring.”

“Stefan-”

“Is in love with you,” Katherine says even. “And the big dumb oaf is too blind to even see it for himself.”

Caroline's eyes widen.

“No,” she replies softly with a shake of her head. “You're like, the freaking queen of lies, and just messing with me.”

Katherine smiles.

“And why do you even care? You're the one who says she's been in love with him for the past hundred and fifty years, and now you want to play merry matchmaker? I don't think so.”

“Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf,” Katherine says, nonchalant.

“Queen. Of. Lies.”

“You're right,” the brunette replies. “I love him. I've always loved him. And maybe if he sees that I, could possibly, care about his happiness over mine-”

“Then he'll see you in a whole new light and realize you're the one for him all along?” Caroline nearly shouts incredulous. “God, you are sick!”

Katherine slithers closer, those devil eyes shining with mischief, placing a hand upon the blonde's cheek.

“Sweet Caroline,” she says. “One day you may realize I hate you least of all.”

/\

“Is that what you want, Stefan?” She asks. “To save me?”

/\

“You don't get to do this,” she seethes, finger jabbing into his chest. “You don't get to disappear for months, and only come back when you're dragged, then proceed to tell me who I spend my time with!”

“That's not-”

“Save the store bought concern!” She interrupts. “Where was it when I was your brother's blood bag, blow job, plaything? Where was it when Klaus was drawing horses and stabbing me with coat hangers? Where was it when my best friend vanished into oblivion too? Nowhere. Just like you.”

“Caroline...”

“Don't,” she snaps. “Say my name like that. Like I'm being helpless little Caroline pitching a fit. You left. You didn't say goodbye. You didn't call. You didn't do anything. Do I really mean so little to you?”

He stands there, chin dipped into his chest, and she feels somewhat triumphant at his complete loss of words.

“I needed to leave,” he manages after a beat. “I had to and I-I couldn't have done it if I said goodbye.”

She wants to believe him.

“You're old fashioned,” she tosses back. “And easily could have left a note. I would have understood.”

He nods.

“Tell me how to fix this.”

She doesn't know how. Doesn't know if she even wants him to try.

“Funny how guys are always so willing to fix something after they're done doing the breaking.”

/\

A drink is placed in front of her without ever asking, blue eyes and a friendly smile, sliding it closer.

“I didn't-”

“No,” Matt agrees. “But it looks like you need it.”

She looks at the shot, back to him, sighs heavily and it's bottoms up.

“That obvious am I?” said with a grimace. “God, if you're going to be generous with a drink at least make it the good stuff.

He laughs.

“A little obvious. Wouldn't have anything to do with the non-dick Salvatore coming back into town would it?”

She scowls.

“I'll take that as a yes.”

Caroline taps the glass against the bar, to which her friend readily complies with a refill, and knocks it back without a grimace this time.

“He leaves town, without a word, and lies to everyone. To me! About this big epic rescue mission to get Damon and Bonnie back. But what is really doing? Playing house! And mechanic! With some floozy while we're all here-”

“Floozy?” Matt interrupts.

She glares, him throwing hands up.

“Lies, are the point Matt. He lied to me and I distinctly remember a conversation where he promised never to do it again. And the best part? When Enzo and I roll up on his own private Idaho he has the-what?”

“What, what?” he replies.

“There was a look.”

“A look?”

A single eyebrow arches.

“It's just that, uh, I thought you were passed psychotic scoundrels with accents.”

Caroline's jaw drops.

“Seriously? You too?”

Matt shrugs.

“He said he had a lead, we went to check it out, and found Stefan all warm and cozy with grease monkey hands, with some raven haired skank he normally wouldn't look twice at.”

“How do you know that?”

“Know what?”

“That he wouldn't look twi-”

“So not the point,” she goes on. “But of course Stefan, like you, thinks there's something going on, when there totally isn't.”

Matt looks skeptical.

“There isn't,” she insists.

“Even if there was,” he starts, throwing up another hand at her oncoming defense. “I'm not judging. But it sounds to me like you're more upset that Stefan thought so.”

“Because-”

“Because he sees someone else before himself,” Matt finishes.

Caroline's eyes go wide.

“I don't know what you mean.”

He gives a depreciating smile.

“I see you with him,” he says kind of quiet. “You light up in a way you never did with me. Or Tyler. And that's an observation, not a judgment, by the way. But he doesn't look back, and it hurts more than you want to admit.”

“Why didn't he go for me?” she whispers.

“Huh?”

Caroline taps the glass again.

“Nothing.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

“Pastels or primaries?” Bonnie asks, shifting through Caroline's closest.

The question doesn't illicit a response, the blonde sitting quietly in front of the mirror, watching her friends go through her clothes.

“Primaries,” Elena answers for her. “They're not going to a picnic.”

Bonnie takes a few dresses off the rack. Grabs a couple tops and skirts for good measure.

“Right, second date.” Bonnie adds with a nod spreading the clothes on the bed. “Serious date.”

Elena picks a red top, matches it to a simple black skirt, and lifts the combination for Caroline's approval. Her brows furrow when met with an indifferent shrug, immediately letting her choices fall back to the bed.

“For someone with a hot date, you sure look miserable.”

Hot date, Caroline thinks. Moving on. It's what people do when they're disappointed. Nowhere does she remember it being said that they had to be particularly happy about it. Which may not be fair to said hot date, but that's not really her focus, and she opens her mouth to say as much when-

“Knock, knock,” Damon's voice carries through the door, never actually knocking. Just as he steps inside without being invited, with Stefan in tow for some unknown reason.

The younger Salvatore's eyes catch Caroline's in the reflection of the mirror, the painfully awkward last conversation they'd shared still resonating in a look.

“A little old to be playing dress up, aren't we Barbie?” Damon teases with a nod to the clothes strewn on the bed.

“She's got a date,” Bonnie answers, rolling her eyes. “We're helping. Friends do that.”

Caroline sees Stefan's jaw clench slightly at the mention of the word, but keeps silent. Good.

“Yes,” Damon replies, crazy blue eyes focusing a bit too intently at the witch. “Friends do a lot of things for each other.”

Elena watches the exchange, lone eyebrow lifting curiously, as Stefan's own gaze never wavers from Caroline.

He doesn't want her to go, Caroline knows, that pained haunted look he's perfected so much. But has no place to say as much. Won't say as much. Not in front of everyone. Not even if they were alone. He'll just stand and suffer, even if it's his own blindness and fear, that keeps them from being something more.

Bonnie, Damon, and Elena branch off in their own conversation. Not a single one paying attention to the staring contest being played out in front of them.

Say something, Caroline conveys in a glare. Anything. Tell me not to go. Say it. Say it, I dare you.

He doesn't, walking out the door instead.

Elena, Damon, and Bonnie seem off in their own little world. Not noticing the sudden absence.

Caroline cancels on Liam with a text.

/\

What was it Elena always accused her of? Delusional positivity?

While he would never be so callous, perhaps there's something there, watching Caroline breeze into the house as if they hadn't spilled their metaphorical insides out to one another mere hours ago. It's unicorns and rainbows. Sunshine and freshly baked cookies. The smile on her face says he didn't break her heart, but the eyes never lie.

He knows her. Better than most. Certainly better than the lifelong friends who can hardly be called to pay attention most of the time, but hey, who is he to judge? Guilty of his own negligence. His summer of freedom, trying not to think of her, of anyone. It's going to cost him. Has cost him.

She's only here because he promised to help with some college project, and while he's broken so many things, promises are not something she's going to let him out of despite what happened.

“Caroline-”

Her eyes narrow at his tone, pained and frustrated, as if they'd been up all night spilling tears.

No, her look says. We're not going to talk about. We're not going to think about it. We're going to work and that's it. No more, no less.

“What do you need me to do?”

She drops a couple books on the table.

“History,” she says. “You say you're good with dates.”

“I am.”

“Prove it.”

It's a challenge, but not with her usual flirtatious flare, something he misses instantly.

He said something once, that she didn't have to pretend with him, but here they are.

Flower petals and baby bunnies despite the dark clouds and thunderclaps.

/\

“Is this Stefan guy why you're here?” He asks, gloved hands securing a strap.

Her eyes are glassy, the light above a bit too bright for her liking, as she twists her head away. Her arms won't move, same for the legs, but the alcohol is still too prevalent in her system for panic. No pain though, but a strange sort of full body numbness she welcomes.

“I try so hard,” she mumbles.

“What was that?”

“I'm never the one.”

Tom pauses, puts a hand just above her bound wrist.

“No one person is worth doing this to yourself,” he says.

Her eyes are heavy, but her body feels as it's on a cloud, floating far far away.

“Caroline?” Tom questions. “Hey Caroline, talk to me.”

Her consciousness is a vacuum, no thoughts, not feeling. Freedom from the enemy of her own mind. No regret, no insecurity, nothing at all.

“What's your favorite breakfast food?” Tom asks randomly. “Mine's waffles. Love waffles. Can't get enough.”

Drenched in strawberry syrup, she thinks. Like mom used to do, before, before...

Her eyes open, the light still too bright, but somehow manage to focus on the uniformed man above you.

“You look like someone,” she says.

“Well I hope so,” he replies with a grin. “I'd hate to look like no one.”

“Mm, no. You look... You look...”

“Easy,” Tom says.

“Are you a twin?”

Tom's face brightens slightly, an easy laugh despite the situation.

“No, I'm an only child.”

“Lonely child,” Caroline replies. “I've seen you before.”

Tom squeezes her hand.

“I see you now.”

/\

He's spent the better part of a hundred and fifty some odd years drifting back here. Sometimes by choice or nostalgia, sometimes by a last resort. He can't recall, in all that time the pull of never wanting to come back. How one little town could be the cause of such misery is not so much a mystery, events all tragic and nothing if not predictable. A little voice says go. Go and never return.

There's a diner on the highway he's never noticed, an odd thirst for something hot and brewed, has his foot gently applying the brake. There's a few people inside, crowded over late night pie and hushed conversation, and he smiles politely at the waitress who says she'll be with him in a minute.

Thumbs hooked in his pockets, his eye catches a pile of books on a table in the corner, head tilting curiously to see a familiar streak of blonde. Caroline's cheek is pressed flat against the table, one hand resting in the middle of an open book, the even sounds of her softly snoozing tickling his ears.

She must come here a lot, he muses. That the wait staff doesn't even give her a second look nodded off at one of their tables. It's tragic, how ones own selfish desires can single handedly ruin something years in the making. He hasn't expressed regret toward her, though his heart clutched whenever in her presence, all the while his mind shouting stay away, stay away, stay away.

He does regret it. The way he's treated her. His consistent ignorance of her pain. A fool to keep up the charade, but not fool enough to misunderstand his actions. Like the ripper, and all sins of his past, he will hate himself forever for sacrificing Caroline Forbes to a need to move on.

Moving closer to her sleeping form, his head dips just low enough to press a kiss into her hair, something which causes a shift and one eye to peer open.

“Stefan?” She mumbles sleepily.

Go, a voice shouts. Run.

He doesn't, pulling out a chair and taking a seat.

“Hey.”

/\

He comes around more.

Instead of leaving. Instead of blowing her mind with just how easily he can cut and run. She lets him because, well, there's hardly a reason is there? Call it nostalgia, or masochism, or whatever it is that keeps her from sending him away.

All it took was for Damon to show up.

Funny that, for all Stefan's pomp about moving on and forgetting this place, the one possible person that could keep him here without all the kicking and screaming reappears and it's like it never happened. They're good at pretending. Like their friendship didn't fall to a new low and almost end completely.

He calls and she answers. She brings coffee and he drinks. They solve problems and talk earnestly. He is, absolutely forbidden, to ever apologize for being the unrepentant ass he was over the summer. It's unsaid of course, his one attempt cut off by the most vicious look she could muster, a single digit shook right to left.

The irony isn't lost on her, wanting that apology, needing it. And the first time he is willing she doesn't want to hear. Things are good now. Better. But every once in awhile she'll see that look in his eye, always haunted and guilt ridden, knowing he wants to say it. Needs to say it. But no, it's too much, it still hurts. Like a knife slashing skin, his indifference to her and what they had, is a bloodstain she doesn't want to clean. Leave it as a reminder. What he did. What he does. Never let it happen again.

/\

Her hand is poised but does not complete the task, paused midair just before contact with the door, bottom lip caught in her teeth. It's telling, she knows, that after months of not being able to return home this is the first place she goes. Salvatore boarding house, established eighteen something or other.

Head tilting to sounds inside, Damon with a drink, and Stefan with a pen to paper. Predictable if anything, oddly comforting on the other end, that sometimes the little things cannot help but stay the same. Her hand still hangs and will not knock, and she's a second from just turning around and heading back to the hospital when Stefan's voice calls from above.

“The doorbell works if you forgot how to knock.”

A small sound escapes her throat at being caught, stepping off the porch and looking up to his amused smirk poking out from a window above. It falls the second he sees her, how she must appear, as if a laugh is the worst possible thing.

He disappears from the window, reappears at the door, and without even thinking about it she's in his arms again. The easy part, she thinks, Christmas lights and half-assed secret Santa gifts. This is what made them work. Pain, and plenty of it. Somber looks, angst galore, and a calm steady shoulder to cry on.

Sorry.

He say he is. She knows he is. But she wasn't kidding about deserving better. However, just as always, when things get tough he's the first person she looks for. The first one she wants to turn to. Time to put your money where your mouth is, she thinks. Because this insecure, neurotic, control freak is about to start working double time now that her mommy is dying.

“Tell me everything is going to be alright,” she says softly.

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm done lying to you.”

She squeezes so him so hard she wants to hear bones crack.

“You're the worst,” she says.

At gifts. At answering phone calls and listening to messages. At staying.

Sobbing onto his shoulder, it's all shortness of breath, and big fat crocodile tears.

She hates him, but doesn't. Loves him, but won't admit it.

So much that she can't fathom the possibility of being anywhere else right now. With anyone but Stefan Salvatore as death looms in the air as fragile as the snow now falling upon them.

/\

The thing is, it's always been there, buried between who she's currently dating and those she dated before. It was purely physical at first. Jawline, hot back, muscle tone carved from marble. It took dying, becoming a monster, to truly fall for Stefan Salvatore. And while they never quite hit that mark, where another step could have led to somewhere beautiful, she could feel it swirl up with a look. Every now and then.

When he came to her, when he needed her, when her name was first in his mind and out past his lips. How she tried to forget, because he never saw, never even thought about the possibilities. Push it away, and bury it deep down, to protect herself from pain.

The catch is, no matter how many times she tried, no matter how blind his ambivalence appeared there aren't as many ways to forget someone as you think they are. Especially when they turn sour, when they do their best to forget you, when your anger is so absolute you finally say enough.

Still there when he apologizes.

Still there when he tries to make up for it.

Still there when he finds out.

Still there when he finally sees you.

/\

There's a cigar perched between her fingers, thrill seeker laughter bursting from her lips, and the echo of bullets chasing them down this lone dirt rode. The money sits wedged between the seat and floor board, a few stray bills escaping the bags, as the engine roars and sirens wail.

Stefan guides the car with skill, but the conditions make for rough travel, bumps and bends sending them in a skid. His laughter matches her own, the act of robbing banks nothing more than a game. A bullet whizzes by Caroline's ear, loud as a bee, and she's finally had enough. Twisting in her seat, she reaches into the back, pulling out the Tommy gun and opening fire.

Her screams match the anger of the weapon, a howl of delight, arms shaking with the discharge.

“Get'em babydoll!” Stefan shouts above the noise, grabbing a knee to stabilize her body as he spins the wheel.

Caroline manages to take out one tire and the radiator of the police cruiser, the vehicle slowing to a crawl, and she shouts triumphant as they speed easily away.

Dropping the gun, she spins back to Stefan with a radiant smile, sliding down the seat and falling against him. She feels him kiss the top of her head, which makes the smile grow bigger, love and victory all the same feeling in a heart that no longer beats.

“Good shootin', girl.” he says with pride.

She squeezes his arm, imagining tomorrows headline, as the car rumbles down the road.

/\

She's never been a still sleeper. Constant movement, constant search of comfort, and a constant twist of blankets to ensure it so. Something impedes her shifting to one side, a weight her barely conscious mind can't compensate for, as she groans softly. Eyes hardly come into focus, the blurred outline of a body barely registering, one heavy hand reaching out.

“Mmm,” comes the reply to her poke.

Okay now, her brain wakes with a bit more urgency, not remembering falling asleep with a bunk mate. It's too dark in the room at first, and serious effort is made to focus undead eyes, grateful for their power in an awkward situation.

More awkward when the sharp angles and chiseled jaw come into view, Stefan's face returned to one of calm after her handy intrusion, and without thinking reaches out again to cup his cheek. It's then she notices the steady beep in the background, knows it to be her mother's heart monitor, and that she and Stefan are not cuddled up at either of their respective residences.

The tiny hospital bed instantly feels much smaller, they're barely inches apart, and all she'd have to do is shift her head and their lips would touch. Tempting if not for the setting. If her mother wasn't dying across the room. He hasn't left her alone since the news, she hasn't let him, and now remembers it was her who grabbed him by the wrist insisting he not go home to sleep.

It's not fair, she thinks, losing both her parents within her first few years of being forever seventeen.

Pain Stefan knows. Pain he understands. Pain he'd take from her if he were at all capable.

Her thumb strokes absently, wondering if he's dreaming of her, if his heart is starting to beat to the syllables of her name. No time for that now, but she hopes, when it's all over he'll look at her. What some part of him vehemently denied to see. That it's not just her love for him, but his own reflected back. That they're stronger together. Better together. They can get through anything.

Together.

/\

His hand goes for the sugar shaker, offering it up to her, before tilting it toward his cup. It's three in the morning, but here they are, having pie and coffee. Just because. A rare moment of escape, in an otherwise month long tragedy, Stefan taking her hand and bringing her here.

Conversation is almost nonexistent, which is odd, but not out of character. His eyes have always spoken volumes, and today they're shouting to the skies, not once having left her. Decorations aside, the need to dissect emotion and meaning, he is there because she wants him to be. He is here because, at long last, realizes it's where he belongs.

It isn't instantaneous happiness. No unicorns and rainbows exploding in a lip lock for the ages. But he said the words, out loud and in real time, with her nodding as if she expected nothing else.

“Yeah,” comes out eventually. “Of course you do.”

/\

The door opens before he can knock, hand paused midair, his awkward attempt at a polite smile after such a surprise met with weary narrowed eyes.

“Is Bonnie home?”

She doesn't answer right away, sizing him up and down, the lone reaction to his presence a single arched brow.

“Miss Bennett?”

“You must think I'm crazy.”

The hand finally drops, both thumbs hooking into his pockets, as his lips form into a thin line.

“I'm sorry?”

“If you think for one second I'll allow my granddaughter to date a vampire.”

Stefan clucks his tongue, the pretense that they are not actually acquainted no longer an option.

“The girl I knew would never dream of denying someone a chance to discover something on their own.”

She is not impressed.

“The boy I knew hasn't aged a day since 1967.”

Got him there, falling back on his heels, almost ready to turn tail and have Bonnie meet him somewhere else. Something picks at his memory, Sheila Bennett and that one magical summer, how he was asked in no uncertain terms to leave town and never come back.

“I'm sorry I never said goodbye.”

“If you think this is some ridiculous jealo-”

“Your mother said she would end me,” he interrupts. “If I ever went near you again. Left me blind in the middle of the cemetery for nearly a day to know she was serious.”

The glare softens a little, this new information sinking in after forty some odd years, but she will not let it sway her. Bonnie enters the picture then, bounding down the stairs with a Cheshire cat smile, and slipping past the doorway before her grandmother can object.

“Hey,” she says to Stefan, wrapping her arms around him.

Stefan's eyes haven't left Sheila's, knowing the elder woman saw the look on her granddaughter's face, a happiness she has likely never been witness too. A single nod is all he gets. Conveying so many things. Yes, she'll allow this. But step out of line just once, for anything she deems fit, and she fulfill her mother's promise.

Bonnie takes his hand, leading him down the walk, before turning back to Grams with a goodbye wave.

/\

When Stefan comes across an old poster, strewn amongst so many old relics in the attic, he shows it to Caroline who's immediately curious.

There hasn't been a Genteel Cotillion in Mystic Falls for nearly seventy years. Pushed aside as too old fashioned, when the lively and more modern Miss Mystic Falls pageant come to prominence.

Scarlett O'hara fantasies driven into overload, despite the pageant's penchant for nineteenth century costumes, this is authentic southern gallantry. She doesn't even have to compel the town council, her presentation so convincing about class and elegance and history, to participate.

Stefan assists as best he can, though how much one can actually help whirlwind Forbes when there's an event to be planned, leaves plenty of idle time to just sit back and watch her go. Catering, music, dress code. Decoration committees, invitations, all meticulously planned.

“Why do I feel like we're practicing for Caroline's wedding?” Bonnie says, twisting the stem on a paper mache rose.

Stefan cracks a smile, head tilting at her in amusement.

“That's not the first time you've said that.”

Bonnie laughs.

“It really isn't.”

“Wanna know a secret?”

A single brow lifts curiously on her face.

“You are practicing.”

Bonnie's mouth drops open.

“What? When did you-”

Stefan looks over at Caroline, talking adamantly with a technician in a blue jumpsuit, jabbing a finger upward at the lighting rig.

“Have you ever actually heard of a Genteel Cotillion?”

“No,” she admits. “But what does-”

Her eyes go wide with the realization.

“You made all of this up?”

He nods.

“Just to ask...”

He nods again.

“She would say yes, if you asked in a Burger King drive through. You know that right?”

“Yeah,” Stefan admits. “But that's not really her style, is it?”

Bonnie playfully punches his arm.

“So, you think really think she'll say yes?”

Bonnie looks around.

“Well, she isn't going to say no.”

/\

Elizabeth Forbes is buried on a Sunday.

An intimate affair compared to the service, family and friends only, allowed to see the casket lowered into the ground. The priest says his words, sprinkles the water, but Caroline hears nothing at all. Oddly quiet, she hasn't shed a single tear, and not once let go of Stefan's hand.

There's hugs from everyone after. Elena, Bonnie, and Matt. One by one and all in single file. Damon gives condolences only in the way of not being an ass, which she'll take, even if a part of her never understands how her mother could ever be friends with him.

Days pass and she feels nothing but ache, hurt and longing forming a pitch black pit, drowning her soul inch by inch. Stefan hasn't left her side. He being the only one not offering empty words of hope. Of inner strength and the inevitability of 'getting over it.'

Weeks pass but it doesn't get any better.

Staring in the bathroom mirror one morning she wonders, just how easy it actually is, to turn it all off.

Stefan places a cup of coffee in front of her, black and steaming, when she lets slip her curiosity. His reaction is not condemning, rather, he reminds her gently of just how disastrous such an option was for Elena. For himself. Turning off your emotions does not erase them, but merely fuels the lack of consideration, in the most contradictory manner.

He doesn't want that for her, and hopes beyond hope, she doesn't truly want such a thing for herself.

“It hurts,” she says softly. “So much. And I just, I want it to stop. Stefan, I need it to stop.”

He kisses her then, not in passion, but camaraderie.

“If you do,” he says. “I do.”

“Stefan-”

Her gaze displays disbelief, but his hand on her cheek and hold on her heart, knows him to be sincere.

“I won't let you do it alone.”

/\

It's striking.

Just how easy it is. How ridiculously simple.

Her hand reaches for his, and it's there, fingers intertwined with feeling. He is here for her, always will be, and nothing or no one is going to change that from now on. He says the words, assurance slipping past his lips, but she believes the look in his eyes even more.

Believes the presence of his body, never more than a few feet away, arms or shoulder always welcoming. The tease of his lips, brushing her ear, her name spoken in a way that fills and breaks her heart all at once.

Best friends. Best. Friends. A mantra in her mind and on her tongue. Never spoken aloud because she knows it to be a lie these days. That whatever they are, far transcends something to neat and tidy as friendship.

His hand rubs circles on her back, the latest panic attack of her mother dying, fading away with the soothing motion. Stefan makes promises. He keeps them. To her mother, to her. He is here and he's not going anywhere. Ever. As long as she needs him, as long as she'll have him.

Tempting to use words like forever, eternity, or always. Tempting to tempt fate, be it kind or cruel, just to see. Oh, just to see. How terrifying such a concept could be going through it all alone. How terrifying it could be to keep him.

Love hasn't been said. Perhaps it never will. Perhaps it never has to. Anyone can see what exists between them, when their eyes meet, when he reaches for her just because.

He kisses her at sunset, and it's every cliched dime store romance, her heart skipping a beat with one leg lifting at the knee. How her eyes flutter shut like butterflies, lips against his as if they've been waiting for ages, eager and wanting. His hands holding her close, hers clutching at his shirt, and please don't stop.

Don't you ever stop.

/\

“Not that.”

She's never seen him smile this way. With his eyes all alight, and focused so intently at her. She's never known what it means to be chosen, honestly and true, in a moment where he can't do anything but choose her. Be there for her. Be with her.

/\

His foot catches something on the floor, eyes drifting down to a body, left there like some discarded article of clothing. The smell of blood is everywhere, refusing to be hidden under the waft of lilac all throughout the house. He's always wondered, just what exactly about having no emotions, makes live blood so much more tantalizing. If a vampire truly didn't care, then why all the extra effort in taking a person? Doesn't the act of robbing any and all suppositories, warrant the same lack of empathy?

She's here, but he doesn't call her name, instead grabbing the body the ankle and sliding it further away from the doorway. In the kitchen he lays out some garbage bags, rolls the body in cheap plastic, and leaves it near the back door.

“You always going to clean my messes?” her voice calls from behind.

He doesn't answer, head craning back to see Caroline leaning against the door frame, a bemused smirk on lips still bloody from the kill. His eyes must linger on them a little too long, because she playfully catches the bottom with her teeth, expression alight with mischief.

“If I have to,” is his reply.

The smirk drops from her face, expectation of a lecture, so easily freezing the flirtatious aura.

“Let's hear it then,” she sighs.

“Hear what?”

“The guilt trip,” she continues, stepping toward him. “The ra-ra speech about how causing so much pain and suffering means I'm really only hurting myself. How our humanity is what keeps us from truly being monsters.”

Stefan's head tilts in amusement.

“Sounds like you've got it all figured out.”

He turns back to the kitchen door, pops it open, and grabs the body by its feet.

“You're really not going to?” she wonders, more to herself than to him.

“I've known a few vampires who turned it off for far less valid reasons. I'm not going to judge you. Or guilt you.”

He stops what he's doing, steps closer to her, and let's a hand stroke gently against her cheek.

“What I will do, is be here, whenever you want to come back. To me. To this.”

He kisses her, no different from the background of a setting sun, actions speaking louder than words he couldn't find when she needed them most. When he pulls back her eyes are wide but cautious, and he sees a flicker of something inside them, still buried deep down but not truly gone.

“Why did you do that?” She asks in a whisper.

She'll come back, he knows. For reasons that have nothing to do with him. But a little incentive never hurts, now does it?

/\

“What does it matter?” She asks. “I'm not your true love. I never will be.”

His hand cups her cheek, fully expectant that she'll pull away, and grateful when she doesn't.

“You're not,” he admits.

Her eyes go wide.

“I'm glad, actually. Because you know what true love is? Fairy tale. Fiction. Those stories end and we never know it all works out. We don't get to see the dirty little details of real life get in the way. My love for Elena, Katherine, was fantasy. Flawed. I know that now. Maybe I knew it all along and just couldn't let myself realize.”

Her hand closes around his wrist.

“I love you. I think-I think maybe I've loved you for a lot longer, and I just... Didn't know what it was. It wasn't destiny. It wasn't-”

“Tell me.”

“It's real,” he says. “This. You and me. Me and you. Caroline I-”

“This is where you stop talking,” she interrupts. “And kiss the girl.”

He does so with the fleeting thought, that even real life is capable of happy endings.

/\

“I'll do it,” she warns, gun aimed square at his heart.

The way he smiles, even with no emotion to speak of, it makes her uneasy. She's never seen his lips twitch in such a way. Eyes alight with devilish intent. Walking through the world as if it is nothing but a sick game, and oh, how he loves to play. Stepping forward without a care, the gun barrel pushes into his chest, and he juts his chin daring her.

“I don't doubt it,” he replies, broken piece of wood dangling in his hand. “In fact, I've given you pretty good cause wouldn't you say?”

Her brows furrow. She shouldn't care. She doesn't care. So what's this nagging feeling? Some soft little voice inside, begging in a whisper. Please, please, please. Don't do it Caroline.

“I know what you're doing.”

“Do you?” he asks, tossing the makeshift stake between hands.

“Yeah.”

“Why don't you enlighten me?”

Her finger on the trigger, one squeeze to shut him up, to make him stop acting like this.

“You're trying to get me to care.”

He stops with the stake.

“Am I?”

Her head tilts.

“Aren't you?”

There it is again. That shit eating grin. God, she wants to wipe it off his face. She wants to...

“Tell me Caroline,” he taunts. “Do I currently look like I give a damn?”

“No.”

“Then why do you assume it matters if you do?”

“Stop it.”

He steps forward, she steps back.

“Do it. You know you want to. Your finger is itching. You don't care about me. You don't care about anything. So come on, do it. End it. Make this pitiful excuse for a vampire the lifeless husk he's always assumed he was. So much poetic woe, all undone, with one little squeeze.”

“Stop it!”

The voice is getting louder. Howling in her mind. Her heart. Not him. Never him. Don't you dare. Don't. You. DARE.

_Click._

Hands are shaking as her eyes fall closed, the gun dropping to the floor with a thud, twin tears sliding down her cheeks.

“Stefan,” falls from her lips, breathless.

When she opens her eyes, he's there, the boy she knows. And she, she's the girl he knows. Just like that. The stake isn't in his hand anymore, that space is currently occupied by her own, fingers entwined like they belong nowhere else.

“There you are,” he says, using his free hand to brush a few stray hairs from her forehead.

She almost laughs.

“Hey.”

He kisses her.

“Hey, yourself.”

/\

There's blood everywhere.

Sweet ambrosia, that's heaven on his tongue, and sticky on his lips. The question of who doesn't matter, the body growing still in his arms, the animal inside screaming. Flesh must tear, bone must break, pieces, pieces all astray.

Somehow, he manages to quell the rage, the fascination with pain. He doesn't rip this person to shreds, but merely lets them drop, once he's has his fill. Head tilted to the heavens, he smiles serene, never feeling so alive for being such a dead thing.

The back of his hand smears crimson, still breathless with the pleasure of it all, he a creature with its own unique switch. Emotions on and off like a lamp, typical of any vampire, but his special to the ripper. All it takes is one drop.

“Oh my god.”

He should have heard her, smelled her, before dark hair and wide eyes come into view. Distraction can be messy, on those who dare to tread so close without warning, but his teeth only flash. His mouth only snarls.

“Stefan...”

His name whispered in horror. In awe. She's seen the beast before, begged it to become a man again, for reasons entirely encompassed in the idea of her. It won't work this time. She no longer has that kind of hold.

“What have you done?”

He stands swiftly, a panther coiled to strike, taking slight gratification in the way Elena steps back.

Caroline makes herself known then, emerging from the shadows with nary a sound, smug satisfaction in the gasp that escapes her friend's mouth. He watches carefully, as Elena's eyes dart between them, matching bloody mouths a sight to behold.

He can see her mind working, forming reasons, anything to understand what is happening in front of her. The shift is easily noted, when one plus one makes two, as her mouth drops slightly as if it couldn't possibly be true.

“You did this on purpose,” she says in shock. Then, slower, softer. “You did it for her.”

Caroline reaches for his hand, and with that simple touch, the beast purrs inside.

“What can I say?” she replies with a grin. “He loves me.”

/\

She wonders if the butterflies will ever stop fluttering, whenever he kisses her, sweet and simple before heading off to class. Wonders if the flush in her cheeks will ever fade, the second before he leans in, with her toes curling in anticipation.

The smile doesn't stop, minutes after he's gone, noticed by the blonde occupying the seat across from her.

“Happy Bonnie Bennett,” Caroline says, somewhat sarcastically. “Lit up like a Christmas tree in July.”

That does cause her smile to drop, brows furrowing, as she ponders whether or not to even dignify such a comment with a response. She and Stefan have been dating only a few weeks, so yes, they're still in that every second I'm with you I just can't get enough, phase. Annoyingly so, she imagines, but still doesn't appreciate the mockery.

Bonnie knows about the party, how Caroline tried her damnedest to hook herself a Salvatore, and that Stefan was shockingly earnest in his disinterest. After the fact is what she tells herself, that Caroline fawning over him in the hallway was nothing new, and she had no clue as to the proposition her friend had made before coming across Stefan herself just minutes later.

Hitting it off is one of those terms she's never really understood, until suddenly the party was winding down, and she and Stefan hadn't paused a single moment in their conversation. He offered to walk her home. She didn't say no.

Caroline hadn't taken it well, when just three days later, she and Stefan were walking across the courtyard hand in hand. That June wedding she planned firebombed into oblivion.

Bonnie would feel guilty, if their meeting didn't seem like some sort of kismet, falling into a relationship so quickly because it just happened naturally. She didn't have to try. She didn't have to do anything, really. Something clicked, and it made all the sense in the world.

“Something wrong with that?” she asks nonchalantly. “Or is happiness not in this season?”

The blonde opens her mouth, as Bonnie braces for the scathing comment to come, and tilts her head curiously when it doesn't.

“No,” she says quietly. “Of course not. You deserve to be happy, it's just...”

“Just?”

“I try so hard,” Caroline continues. “And I'm never the one.”

Bonnie reaches for her friends hand, knowing the girl's moments of crippling insecurity. That it's all a competition. Caroline thinks, as Caroline does, that it should have been her. You plan, you work, you get results. All well and good when it comes to a history project, but another person? Bonnie doesn't know how to tell her it just doesn't work that way.

“You're so cute together,” she admits. “It's disgusting, and I kind of hate it, but it's true.”

Bonnie laughs.

“Thanks?”

“I'm sorry,” Caroline says. “For being-well, you know. Me.”

“I'd be mad if I didn't half expect it,” Bonnie replies, eyes alight at Caroline's jaw dropping in mock offense. “Getting jealous over each others boyfriends is a friendship right of passage anyway, isn't it?”

“What's this about boyfriends?” Stefan asks, suddenly reappearing just over Bonnie's shoulder.

“Nothing,” Bonnie says, smiling up at him. “Just girl talk about you being mine.”

Stefan looks as if he doesn't believe that for a minute.

“Okay...”

“Thought you had history this period,” Caroline chimes in, not so subtlety changing the subject.

“I do,” Stefan replies, purposely pushing against Bonnie as he reaches over her and grabs for his forgotten textbook from the table. “Kind of helps to be prepared.”

He wraps his arms around Bonnie's shoulders, textbook and all, kissing the top of her head with comedic fervor, as she squeals and squirms with delight.

Caroline sighs.

“Disgusting.”

/\

It's three in the morning, and she's out of breath.

Barely hidden by a pillar, she crouches low, eyes closed as she focuses on the sounds that surround. He's like a cat, this Stefan is, who knew? She's heard a few stories about the ripper, never from the man himself because lord knows he couldn't possibly angst over it more, but never did she think her plan would haunt like this.

She wanted him free. She wanted him fun. No emotion Stefan Salvatore is Hannibal Lecter with slightly better hair.

As if plucking his own name from her brain, he makes his presence known from somewhere behind, voice echoing off the walls as he sings that annoying song which shares her name.

“Bah bah bah,” he calls, followed by a laugh. “Good times never seemed so gooooood.”

People say fear is an emotion, but if that's one hundred percent accurate, why this terrifying feeling? No, fear is instinct. It warns of danger. Stefan the psycho killer wants nothing more than to make her pay for daring to go after his family, even if the part of him that cares about such things is currently on sabbatical.

“You wanted this,” he calls out.

There's a broken piece of wood next to her left foot, and it looks jagged enough to be a weapon, reaching for it as quietly as she can.

“What's the matter? Not having fun anymore?”

She springs to her feet, rabbit quick, and chucks the piece of wood straight into his abdomen. He drops to his knees with a groan, reaching down a pulling the makeshift stake from his flesh, gasping as it falls to the ground.

Standing over him, she clenches his hair in her fist, expecting him to grimace. It's disturbing that he smiles.

“Of course you realize,” he says, voice rasped with pain. “This means war.”

Terrified and thrilled all at once, she leans in close.

“Bring it on, baby. I'm having the time of my life.”

/\

“Should I be worried?” She asks, lifting the coffee cup to her lips and blowing cautiously. “That you're such a skilled liar?”

At her family's cabin, the one place she didn't strip clean of life after Liz died, sitting side by side watching the horizon brighten with the sunrise happening behind them.

“Lying about lack of feelings,” he starts, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Doesn't mean I lie about actual feelings.”

She thinks on that a minute.

“But you said things,” she goes on. “Did things the real Stefan would never do.”

He's quiet a minute, too.

“I did what I had to do. To get you back. I would have done anything.”

She sips her coffee.

“I kind of thought,” she says with a sigh. “That if we ever got together, it would be, I don't know. Sweet? Like some eighties movie moment, where two best friends suddenly realize... Not me trying to kill your niece and forcing you to play no emotion bingo.”

Stefan laughs, before pressing a kiss into her hair.

“No emotions gets you a pass.”

Caroline sighs.

“Doesn't feel like I deserve one.”

His hand reaches under her chin, lifting so their eyes meet.

“You're not the only one who's ever shut if off. Elena did. I did. And you know what? She was forgiven. I was forgiven. I may be an astute liar, but a hypocrite? I sure hope not.”

It makes her smile, even if her eyes are sad, there's light in them. The sunshine he missed when the clouds rolled in. She kisses him, soft and sweet, before shifting her attention back to the scenery and her cup of coffee.

“I still can't believe you faked the whole thing.”

/\

“Go on,” she gasps into his ear. “Do it.”

He twists, she groans, but the sweet release doesn't come.

“You think I want to kill you?” He asks, tone genuinely curious.

Her eyes lose focus, just a second, hand wrapped the pool cue currently skewering her chest and teasing the edge of her heart. Backing off suddenly, he lets her drop to the ground, as she pulls out the intrusion and tosses it across the room.

The healing process begins instantly, as her head lulls to the side, shoulders against the wall he held her against. He crouches down within arms reach, but she doesn't have the energy to backhand him. Instead she merely scowls, as his fingers trace the wound, before bringing them to his lips and smiling wickedly.

“My dear, dear heart,” he says leaning close, hand upon her cheek. “Why would I ever want that?”

Her brow furrows at his words, despite leaning into his touch, the last tinge of pain he'd inflicted finally fading.

“Not so good with spoken words,” he continues. “But that boy could write libraries about you.”

It's somewhat disconcerting, how he refers to himself as a completely different person with emotions, as if he truly is split in two. How this Stefan will push her, hurt her, but he won't end it. He won't kill her.

Just like she, cold and calculating, will kill everyone he's ever loved. But not him. Never him.

“He's had two instances of love, in a hundred and sixty years, and the girls in question both bore the same face. He clung to that, you know? Thinking fairy tales were real. That true love was this ridiculous, all encompassing notion.”

She doesn't want to hear it. Katherine and Elena, evil queens who toyed with naive boy's heart. Who the hell cares?

“Funny thing,” he goes on, fingers reaching up to play with her hair. “After all the pain they caused, that nauseating teenage angst, he could live without them.”

Her eyes lock with his, hoping her indifference radiates.

“Not you though.”

His hand goes to her shoulder when she tries to get up.

“He ran from you, he runs from you, because he is terrified. He doesn't know what love is. Not really. But when he looks at you, oh sweetie, when he looks at you.”

He's so close, her head lifts up on instinct, before grabbing him by the throat and tossing him away. Rising to her feet, she looks over to him, sprawled on his back where he hit the ground. Pausing at the laughter that escapes him, she scowls in annoyance, fists clenching in anticipation of the pain he'll feel for stabbing her.

“Hurt me all you want,” he taunts. “But you won't kill me just as much I won't kill you.”

She stands above him, resting her boot on his chest, he looks up to her but won't stop laughing.

“Ain't love grand?”

/\

The razor gleams, as it trails along the skin of his inner arm, leaving a thin red line in its wake. Her eyes watch with anticipation, following every silver slash, as the blood flows from trickle to stream. Angling his arm, he lets just a few drops fall to eager lips, smirking with pride as she gasps at the contact.

“More,” she says, tone leaving nothing open for interpretation.

Lowering himself to his knees, he complies by letting her grab hold of his wrist, her fangs already bared and sinking into clean cut flesh. Allowing just one good gulp, he pulls his arm away, leaving ruby lips to cry out with the absence.

“Stop,” she warns, voice low and vicious, “teasing me.”

“How can I stop?” he asks. “When it's just so much fun?”

She struggles against the straps, arms bound to bedposts, flashing teeth stained with his blood. He kisses those lips quick, moves back before she can nip at him, and slashes the blade against his other arm.

Drip, drip, drip onto her tongue.

She twists atop the bed, hips shifting side to side, before he presses his weight against her. Hands sticky and crimson, he cups her face, kissing with such force she growls into his mouth. Lips on her chin, just under the jaw, before his eyes go black and bites into the soft skin of her neck.

He may love the tease but isn't cruel, positioning himself just so, that she may rip into his neck as well. Not sure how long it goes on, when he tears himself away, collapsing against her should as they lie there breathless.

“Well lover,” Caroline says into his ear. “Was it good for you?

/\

The club is packed with writhing bodies.

Air stale with the smell of them all, gyrating to the repetitive beat, one that can't seem to get her own limbs to move along. Instead she just leans with her back against the bar, constantly scanning the crowd, drinking and flirting just enough that the bartender doesn't mind her continued presence.

Stefan and Caroline disappeared the second they all walked into the place, leaving her to make her own fun, or lack thereof. She keeps checking her phone, but reception is spotty, which is really no surprise considering the basement locale.

She blinks and suddenly he's there, piercing blue eyes and mischievous eyebrows, leaning on his elbows and snapping at the bartender.

“You came,” she says, unable to keep the amazement out of her voice.

“You called,” he replies, taking his whole drink in one swallow. “What am I doing here, Bonnie?”

She signals for another two from the barkeep.

“I thought it was time.”

Damon clinks his glass against hers.

“Only took a month,” he says, once again taking the drink in one fell swoop. “Care to share what inspired this sudden revelation?”

She stares down into her drink, mutters an answer he can't hear, before knocking it back.

“I'm sorry, what was that?”

Still staring into the now empty glass, she repeats herself so he can hear.

“Things got weird.”

A curious crease forms on his brow, head tilting at her, mulling over a cavalcade of possibilities.

“Weird like you suddenly realizing road tripping with a couple of emotionless vampires, wasn't the best idea you ever had?” He asks.

She doesn't look at him, twisting the glass in hand, but she feels his gaze as he slowly tries to figure her out.

“You're kidding me,” he says with a laugh, picking up on the color flushing her cheeks. “You know the third person is supposed to be a stranger, right?”

Looking at him sharply, he throws his hands up, anticipating the pain threatened in her eyes.

“No judgment here,” he assures. “No details either. He is my brother. Speaking of which, where are he and blondie?”

She offers a wave at the sea of bodies.

“Will they be joining us on the ride to Mystic Falls?”

Bonnie honestly doesn't know the answer to that, but they'd been pretty good with her despite the lack of humanity, maybe it was finally time go back and switch everything back on. Grabbing Damon's arm, she leads him into the crowd, eyes peeled for a blonde and a brooding chin. Thoughts of the open road finally leading them home.

/\

“Don't tell me,” Katherine says, fingers idly twirling her hair, legs pointed at the ceiling and rocking back and forth. “You've never thought about it.”

Caroline sighs, flipping the pages of her textbook even though no knowledge was retained, wondering just where exactly this tangent is headed. She doesn't want to bite, and seriously considers ignoring her completely, but knows that if she does Katherine will just keep on talking.

“Thought about what?” She asks, exasperated.

“Stefan.”

Her hands slam the book closed, momentarily tempted to just toss it at the five hundred year old vampire sprawled out on her bed, instead she simply pushes it away.

“Seriously?” she questions, spinning around in the desk chair. “We're back on this again?”

“Yes.”

“Are you really this bored?”

“Yes.”

Katherine cranes her head toward Caroline, view askew and upside down, smile backward and disconcerting. If she were still human, Caroline would fear for her life at the sight.

“What do you want from me here?” She asks. “We are friends. He's like, my best friend.”

“I thought Bonnie and Elena were your best friends.”

Caroline bites her lip.

“It's not...” she starts, trails off.

“Not what?”

“Not the same thing,” comes out softly.

Katherine turns onto her stomach, legs kicking back and forth, eyes focused with devilish delight.

“Of course it isn't,” Katherine offers. “From what I hear, he helped you become what you are, molded you into the perfect vampire version of yourself.”

“That's being generous.”

“And untrue?”

“No. But-”

“So there's no lingering feelings of gratitude?” Katherine goes on. “No Nightingale syndrome?”

Caroline's face pinches in confusion.

“Stefan would be Nightingale in this scenario.”

Katherine laughs.

“Sharp girl,” she teases.

“Is this conversation going anywhere? I mean, what exactly are you trying to get me to say?”

“Perhaps I was being too kind with that sharp compliment.”

Katherine pushes herself up from the bed, boots clopping on the wooden floor, steps slow and deliberate toward the blonde still perched in the desk chair.

“What I want,” she says calmly. “Is you to admit you have feelings for him.”

“Why would you possibly want that?” Caroline wonders. “Doesn't your hundred something year obsession with Stefan forbid anyone else from having such feelings?”

“He's the love of my life,” Katherine admits. “And I think-”

“Think what?”

“That he's the love of yours, too.”

Caroline's eyes go wide, before shifting toward the floor, uncomfortable with Katherine's intense gauging of her reaction.

“You have got to be kidding me. I don't-”

Katherine throws a hand up.

“Stop. You're a terrible liar.”

“And you're the queen of lies.”

Stalemate.

“If I say yes, then what? You come up with some elaborate plot to kill me?

Katherine is close now, uncomfortably so, that she reaches out a hand to Caroline's cheek.

“What are you doing?”

Katherine smiles.

“Believe it or not, you're one of the few people I don't want dead.”

“Okay...”

“If you love him, you don't have to be afraid of me.”

It takes all the will power Caroline has not to shy away, to squirm in her seat at such proximity and unwarranted accusation. What she does or does not feel for Stefan, isn't going to be answered in this fashion. Her eyes are locked with Katherine's, and she doesn't believe for a second she won't end up on the sharp end of a stake for shouting 'I love Stefan Salvatore' at the top of her lungs.

She keeps her chin up. She doesn't tremble.

“I'm not afraid.”

 


End file.
